


Change of Plans

by kitausu



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boys Kissing, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Honeymoon, Kissing, M/M, Meet-Cute, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Travel, World Travel, but not theirs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2018-12-25 22:18:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12045429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitausu/pseuds/kitausu
Summary: When Shiro is left at the alter, he decides to go on his honeymoon alone. Enter Lance, the man Shiro had hired to take him and his would-be bride on a month long tour of Europe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Updates on Saturdays!

Shiro stared at the tickets for several long moments. They looked so innocent, there, sitting on the breakfast table, like they weren’t some kind of physical manifestation of how far his life was from where he thought it would be today.

Today, he was supposed to be leaving for his honeymoon. The car he had hired would be here in just a few hours.

He was supposed to be ecstatic, over the moon with happiness, too busy kissing his bride and unable to keep his hands to himself.

Yet, here he was, standing in a now half empty apartment, half empty for the past week, actually.

He had told her he would cancel the trip, refund the tickets maybe, or give them to Keith for him and Hunk to use.

But, the tickets were nonrefundable, and Keith had just grimaced and said _I don’t really think going on your honeymoon is something I’m comfortable with._

The suitcases were in their, well his now, room. Empty, waiting to be packed, gaping holes that wanted to be filled.

Shiro moved around the table, giving it a wide berth like he was afraid of getting too close, his eyes never leaving the tickets like he was afraid they might come to life and attack him. The coffee maker beeped, the automatic start bringing it to life with a gurgling clang and the sudden scent of coffee hitting the air, a welcome distraction.

Coffee, that was something Shiro still understood, something that made sense. He waited, mechanically, as it percolated and spilled into his waiting mug, eyes still glued to the offending object now to his right.

Without thinking, he raised the drink to his lips, turning to rest his hip against the sharp edge of the counter, lost in thought.

He wondered if maybe…but that was ridiculous…

Shiro moved closer to the table, feet sliding on the wood floor like he was afraid of making too much noise, of spooking the little sheets of paper.

He didn’t have much going on for the next month. He had taken off work for the trip, but when he had called, asking if they needed him since he wasn’t going anywhere, Allura and just hummed sadly and told him to take his time.

“You took paid leave, Shiro. Enjoy the time off. Call me if you need anything.”

Was he supposed to just sit around for the next month, staring at the blank spaces around the apartment: the rings on the windowsill where her plants used to be, the too clean space of carpet by the bed where her rug had protected it from mud and dirt tracked in from morning runs?

No, he couldn’t do that…but what else…?

The same thought struck him again. This time, though, it seemed less ridiculous. It almost seemed logical, even.

The tickets were non-refundable. The hotels and tour guide payments were all nonrefundable. He hadn’t even bothered to call the tour company to tell them the trip was off. Their poor guide would probably wait for hours in the airport, looking for Mr. and Mrs. Shirogane.

He thought of some poor college kid, giving tours to pay the rent, waiting forlornly at the Barcelona airport for a couple that wouldn’t come. It wasn’t his fault Shiro’s engagement had fallen apart.

Why should some kid suffer because he couldn’t keep it together long enough to make it to the alter? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

Shiro looked at the tickets again, unsure when his gaze had wondered to the grimy window overlooking the New York city street outside.

A month traveling Europe didn’t actually sound like such a bad idea come to think of it.

 

It didn’t take long for Shiro to pack, half of his belongings taken away in a whirl of citrusy perfume and a too small moving van that had required multiple trips and multiple stab wounds in Shiro’s back, metaphorically speaking, or course.

Mostly, he simply threw his clothing into the suitcase, all of it, too keyed up to discern what was necessary and what wasn’t. He didn’t have the patience to carefully siphon off shampoo and soap into mini travel containers like he normally would have. He would find what he needed while he was there, and if he didn’t, what else was new?

 

The car ride to the airport was…strange, at first. Unfortunately, Shiro had forgotten he had told the company that they were going on their honeymoon, meaning, when the driver showed up, streamers in hand and yelling congratulations as he bounded up the stairs to the door, Shiro already had a headache pounding at the base of his skull.

“And where is the lovely bride?”

The man was so earnest and authentic that Shiro actually felt bad about the whole thing, like he was delivering the bad news instead of living it in horrifying technicolor.

“Ah, single, and probably at her new apartment, I guess.”

He laughed, self-consciously, as realization dawned on the elderly man’s face and his mouth went slack with horror. He dropped the streamers like they had burned him, and straightened up like a soldier under inspection.

“Where would you like me to take you, sir?”

He sounded sympathetic, and Shiro liked him a little more for it, despite the still growing headache pulsing across the length of his shoulders.

“The airport, please.”

When he took Shiro’s bags and didn’t ask any more questions, Shiro decided he probably loved the man.

 

He arrived at the airport, without incident, even making it early, which was something new for him. He actually had time to sit in the little frequent flyer lounge and stair out the big plexiglass windows and contemplate his life a little bit.

He decided he preferred being nearly late, actually.  

Shiro grimaced as the stewardess eventually showed him to his first-class seat, a rose placed delicately on the chair beside his. Being faced with all the stupidly romantic gestures he had orchestrated, now, under the circumstances, was seriously starting to make him question his own taste.

He wanted to throw the flower away, but something stopped him. Instead, he spent the entirety of the incredibly long flight, painfully aware of the flower at his side, still untouched.

When they landed in Barcelona, something made him pick it up and smell it, the faint floral scent a relief after the too stale air of the plane and the stench of human bodies nestled together in a metal tube for way too long.

The air that blasted in between the plane and the docking area was crisp and clean, clearing Shiro’s sleep addled brain enough to get him through customs and to his bags with only minor hardship.

“And are you here for business or pleasure, sir?”

“I’m on my honeymoon.”

“Congratulations! And where is your bride?”

“She couldn’t make it.”

The customs agent had grown wide eyed, simply stamping his passport and handing it back to him with wary concern but also a clear desire to get Shiro as far away from him as soon as possible.

The fact that Shiro was still carrying the red rose probably hadn’t helped matters that much.

It was a relief when he saw his name, printed in large block letters on off-white poster board, he barely looked at the man carrying the sign.

“Mr. Shirogane?”

Shiro blinked at the very distinctly American accent and looked up into the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

“Um…yes?”

The man smiled, pearly white teeth peeking out from between his lips, his nose crinkling up adorably as he looked him up and down.

“I’m Lance McClain, I’m your tour guide for your romantic honeymoon adventure!”

Shiro nodded dumbly, his brain trying to process and reconcile the image of the specky college kid he had conjured up in his head and the gorgeous man standing before him.

“Is your wife getting the rest of your bags?”

Shiro shook his head, first trying to clear it, then in response.

“Uh…she left…me that is. She left me. We didn’t get married. But…um…I’m still here to take the tour, if that’s okay?”

Shiro winced, he sounded so pathetic, his brain addled by jetlag and too many emotions swirling in his head.

Lance seemed winded, looking around in bewilderment, his eyes scanning Shiro up and down like he couldn’t process…something.

“If it’s not okay I can—”

“No! It’s fine! Of course it’s fine!”

Blushing, Lance seemed to realize suddenly just how loud he had been talking, lowering his voice perceptively as he continued.

“Um…do you want to talk about it or…”

Shiro’s head jerked back in shock, that was honestly the last thing he had expected this complete stranger to ask him.

“Uh…Actually…I would kill for a cup of coffee right now.”

The sudden look of delight that crossed Lance’s face was like the sun peeking out from the clouds, momentarily blinding Shiro and leaving him stunned.

“I know just the place.”

He grabbed Shiro’s bags, turned on his heel, leaving Shiro no choice but to follow, the rose still in hand.


	2. Chapter 2

When they left the airport, Lance walked him over to a…moped. Shiro blinked, once, twice, looking around the parking lot like maybe an actual car would appear. But nope, it was still a moped. A baby blue moped at that.

“Ummm…”

Lance turned and beamed at him, carefully securing his bag to the little basket behind the seat with practiced ease.

“This is a moped.”

Shiro could feel his eyebrows climbing up his forehead to disappear beneath his fringe.

“Yup! I call her Blue! Isn’t she gorgeous?”

Patting the seat with care, Lance actually swooned a little as he showed off his bike and stroked the handle bars.

“Uh…I guess? But...you thought you were picking up two people…?”

Nonplussed, Lance cocked his head in confusion, like he couldn’t seem to fathom the question Shiro was asking.

“A moped only seats 2 people at most.”

Shiro continued slowly like talking to a child who just wasn’t getting it.

“And you would have had to carry three people…?”

Shiro could feel his patience running thin. What was actually wrong with this guy that he couldn’t see what Shiro was asking? He made a helpless gesture between them and the bike and the air where his ‘wife’ would have theoretically stood, _willing_ Lance to understand.

 _Finally,_ blessedly, thankfully, comprehension seemed to dawn on his face before laughter bubbled up like champagne bubbles from a bottle.

“I have a side car!”

Lance continued to hiccup giggling little outbursts as he waved Shiro over to the other side of the bike where a petit sidecar was attached, one small enough that Shiro was probably sure he would only be able to fit one butt cheek on the seat.

The realization seemed to have come to Lance as well because his giggles where quickly mounting into a full body laughter as he doubled over and braced his hands on his knees.

“I’m starting—ahh--starting to see the p-problem here.”

The words came out stilted as bursts of giggles overflowed between syllables as Lance continued to look between the side car and Shiro, seemingly finding each pass between funnier than the last.

Shiro’s mouth was starting to press into a dangerously thin line, his temper flaring as Lance’s laughter carried on well beyond his patience.

“I thought you were taking me to get coffee.”

Lance finally stood at that, wiping the tears of laughter form his cheeks with the palms of his hands. His eyes looked dewy and still full of mirth as he gestured grandly for Shiro to take a seat on Blue the moped.

“I am…sorry…just—wow that was good. Are you ready?”

The eyebrow that had never fully come down from his hairline raised higher as Shiro just moved to silently take the offered space.

When Lance slid onto the seat between him and the handles, Shiro was at least self-aware enough to try to make some space between them. He wasn’t…he couldn’t _think_ of anyone like that, not right now. But Lance was pretty and he was lonely and despite the low level of irritation simmering beneath his skin, he wasn’t taking any chances, despite Lance’s insistence to _hold on for safety._

He nearly regretted his prudishness when the moped actually started and Lance peeled off into the busy Barcelona traffic. Lance hadn’t actually been kidding when he said it was for safety. Shiro found himself pressed up tight against Lance’s back, all inappropriate thoughts completely forced from his mind as the feeling of mortal peril took over.

“Are you sure you have a license?”

Shiro was intimately aware of the fact that neither of them were wearing a helmet and Lance was weaving in and out of traffic like the cars were standing still. He was also perfectly aware that Lance’s _woop_ was not a response to his question at all.

Eventually, Shiro realized they weren’t on a street at all, speeding down a narrow alleyway, dodging overturned trashcans with what Shiro hoped was practiced ease and not just dumb luck.

“I didn’t even know mopeds could go this fast.”

He shouted this time, desperate to be overheard through the wiping wind and Lance’s occasional burst of laughter and the loud jangling of the moped beneath them.

“They don’t! My friend supped this up for me! Isn’t it great?”

The words were nearly lost in the wind, Shiro kind of wished they had been. He started to wonder what this would have been like with his wife…well his ex. She would have hated it, riding through Barcelona on what was likely an illegally supped up vehicle. She would have had to sit in the sidecar, which was currently vibrating ominously, the screws probably about to come loose with his luck.

She probably would have had a lot to say about how tightly Shiro was currently holding onto Lance, too. She had had a lot to say about Keith, anyway. Shiro gritted his teeth, not wanting to relive the arguments and have them be the last thing he ever thought about if he died on this death trap of a vehicle

This trip was supposed to be a distraction, Shiro _needed_ it to be a distraction. So, it was with _extreme_ relief when the moped slowed to an uneventful stop in front of a little hole in the wall café.

Shiro was surprised to see a they were in a tiny shopping square, the large groups of people Shiro had expected conspicuously absent as he looked around.

“Where are we?”

He was still clutching Lance, absently now, his muscles frozen to granite hardness as he had struggled to stay alive.

“If you let me go, I’ll show you.”

Lance cast a smile over his shoulder, wiggling his hips in emphasis and laughing when Shiro let go with a lurch as if burned by the contact.

“Sorry.”

Shiro mumbled the apology, not looking as he forced his stiff muscles to unlock and clambered off of the bike.

“It’s fine, I don’t actually mind a hottie like you holding onto me.”

Shiro started to roll his eyes but was startled by the shocked gasp and sound of skin on skin.

“I am _so_ sorry. That just slipped out. I can’t believe I just said that to you after you were…well…I’m sorry holy shit what is wrong with me?”

It was comical to see Lance’s cheeks flush, brilliant points of red high up on his cheekbones as he shook his head at himself. Shiro caught himself smiling, the first flash of something genuine since Lance had asked him if he wanted to talk sending him off kilter.

His would be tour guide was loud mouthed and annoying, but Shiro was at least convinced he was a good person, trying to kill him on a moped notwithstanding.

“So, where have you brought me, then?”

Lance looked up at him, his eyes wide as he looked Shiro over, assessing the damage of his thoughtless comment.

“Coffee?”

He pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth, chewing it nervously as he gestured for Shiro to follow him through the low stone doorway.

When they entered the room, it really was nothing more than a little café, the ceilings only just tall enough to keep Shiro from having to duck. But the smell, the smell was amazing. The scent of roast coffee beans enveloped him in a hug as soon as they walked in and Shiro felt his knees weaken a little.

The bliss must have shown on his face because Lance was smiling at him, the blush still painted across his skin but faded to a rosy hue that complimented his rich dark skin.

“It’s good, right?”

All Shiro could do was nod as he looked around at the bags of beans piled high around the room and the gleaming chrome of the espresso machines behind the counter.

Eventually a little man came out from the back, his face lined with deep frown lines, his mouth pinched in irritation when he spotted Shiro and Lance in his store.

Shiro didn’t speak a single word of Spanish, but the man’s tone was gruff, irritation clear in the way he banged around the space and spat his words at them.

Lance, unsurprisingly, seemed unaffected, his smile only growing ever larger as he spoke with the man in what sounded like fluent Spanish. He gestured to Shiro and himself then somewhere off to a little door Shiro only noticed then.

When Lance moved to pull out his wallet, Shiro tried to do the same but Lance grinned and waved him off.

“For nearly killing you on the moped and making an ass of myself.”

Shiro couldn’t really argue with either of those points, so he simply slipped the wallet back into his back pocket and let Lance handle it.

He was looking at a particularly dusty photograph on the wall when he felt a warm hand on his elbow, pulling him along. Lance shot him a wink as he guided him towards a door in the back, the one Shiro had nearly missed, and shouted something over his shoulder in Spanish to the owner who simply snarled in response.

Shiro let himself be led in silence, his mouth dropping open when Lance pushed open the door to reveal a sea of roses and day lilies.

Lance’s hand was a hot point of focus, still gripping his elbow as they navigated the overflowing beds of flowers that blanketed the ground and climbed the walls like ivy. At the center of it all was a gurgling fountain, a little girl standing frozen in time as she spilled water at her feet. A few rickety iron tables surrounded the fountain, some occupied, but enough empty that Lance could pick one far enough away not to hear the conversation of others beyond a low murmur that was nearly drowned out by the sound of water in their ears.

Lance finally let his hand drop from Shiro’s arm, the sensation lingering as he watched him pull out a chair for himself.

“He said he’ll bring our coffee out.”

Taking his own seat, Shiro couldn’t help but laugh a little in disbelief.

“He did?”

Lance ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly at that.

“Well…I asked him to and he grunted. Which, usually means he will bring it.”

Inclining his head, Shiro grinned and looked around the garden instead. The floral scent was even more powerful than the smell of roasting coffee beans, giving the illusion that they were ensconced in some kind of fairy land and not the sitting area of a café.

Lance was watching him curiously and Shiro felt an overwhelming pull to fill the silence.

“What made you bring me here?”

Grimacing, Lance finally looked away, his eyes tracking a nearby honey bee that was flitting from petal to petal.

“Well…I mean—”

“You thought it would be a romantic place for a couple.”

Of course, Shiro should have guessed. He was supposed to be on his honeymoon. Why wouldn’t there by any number of romantic spots on the list of places a tour guide would take him?

“I shouldn’t have—”

“No. This is nice. I like flowers.”

He offered him a tentative smile which Lance thankfully returned, although he still looked concerned in the lines around his eyes and mouth. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then the door to the café swung open and the man from earlier stomped over to them, every inch a grouchy old man that Shiro could feel a giddiness of disbelief filling up his senses.

When the man actually slammed their café con leche’s hard enough that they sloshed milk onto the filmy glass tables Shiro had to press his hand across his mouth to stifle a snort.

It was either a blessing or just pure spite that kept the man from noticing or caring as he stomped off back the way he came without a sound, leather shows slapping like ducks feet on the cobbled stones.

When Shiro glanced at Lance, he was looking back, wide eyed, his teeth digging into his own lip painfully hard to literally bite back his own laugh.

They each barely made it, the door only just swinging closed behind him, before their control was lost and they were howling, disturbing the birds nearby and setting them off even more.

“I can’t believe—”

“Did you _see?!_ ”

“What on _Earth?”_

The other customers were no doubt looking at them like they were completely out of their minds, but Shiro was laughing so hard he was crying, and Lance was only barely managing not to knock his drink onto the floor and it felt _good._ Good to laugh after weeks of feeling like a frown was permanently painted on his face.

When Shiro finally got himself under control, Lance was still hiccupping, trying to drink his coffee, and nearly sloshing it down his shirt every time his body jumped of its own accord.

“I needed that.”

Shiro sighed, mostly to himself, but Lance beamed at him all the same.

 

They finished their coffees in relative silence, just enjoying the little world that Lance had brought them to. The birds eventually came back, disgruntled at how loud they were, and splashing imperiously in the fountain as if to show their superiority to the loud-mouthed humans.

“Mr. Shirogane—”

“Shiro.”

Lance looked at him curiously, but smiled and nodded to himself like something he had been speculating was just confirmed.

“Shiro, then. Would you like to go to your hotel and drop off your bags?”

The thought of a warm bed was enough to have him feeling every second of the nearly 8 hour flight from New York.

“Lead the way, Mr. McClain.”

Lance shook his head and stood from their table, stretching as he did.

“Lance is fine. Mr. McClain was my father.”

Shiro rolled his eyes at the faux imperious tone and followed him back through the café, where the owner was very conspicuously missing, and out onto the streets.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I was going to make this chapter longer, but RL got in the way and I wanted to put something out rather then nothing. The good thing is, I at least have a plan for the rest of the Barcelona portion of this story!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented/given kudos/bookmarked. It really is what keeps me motivated on multichapter stories.

The ride back through the alleyways and to the Barcelona city center was surprisingly smooth in comparison to their trip _to_ the little cafe. Maybe It was the coffee, or just the air of a new city, but Shiro felt keyed up, like the moped couldn’t move fast enough. He unconsciously leaned forward into the smooth curve of Lance’s back as if urging him to go faster.  

The air whipped by him, pushing his fringe up and out of his eyes so he could watch the tourists and locals milling around, eating dinner at little sidewalk restaurants and shopping in fast blurs across his field of vision. Lance was quieter now, one hand carefully controlling the handlebars, while the other occasionally darted down to adjust where Shiro’s hands were clasped around his middle.

Long fingers would dip down around his wrist, or push against the wrist of his prosthetic, moving them restlessly higher or lower as they took turns and avoided sidewalk pillars, water rushing through boulders. It occurred to him that he had never actually told Lance where he was staying, but he figured it must have come up in the paperwork with the tour group agency because within minutes of this realization, they were pulling up outside a little hotel at the heart of the city.

“Here we are!”

Lance shot him a smile over his shoulder, those same long fingers moving to unhook Shiro’s hands like a seatbelt. Shiro felt his face burn. If they were going to keep traveling by moped, he was going to have to do some serious thinking to stop himself from having a repeat performance of today. He wasn’t sure he could actually handle Lance having to physically remove his hands from him every time they stopped somewhere.

It was even more difficult to climb off of the moped this time than before. The jetlag was catching up to him fast, and his limbs moved through jello as he tried to steady himself against the seat and find his balance with two feet now firmly planted on the sidewalk.

“Here.”

Shiro startled when a rose was suddenly shoved under his nose. Was Lance _giving_ him a rose? Where did it—

His stomach clenched as he remembered the plane ride and carrying the flower through customs. Right. Lance must have slipped it into his bag when he tied it to the moped at the airport. Shiro couldn’t believe he had actually forgotten it.

He brushed Lance’s hand aside gently, and took his bag instead.

“You keep it.”

Lance blinked, his smile faltering a little as the shells of his ears turned pink.

“Was that weird? Sorry! You don’t have to…I mean…you could throw it away, if you wanted?”

Shiro shrugged helplessly with his free shoulder, the prosthetic side weighted down with his bag. To his surprise, Lance clutched the flower carefully to his chest.

“You can’t _throw a flower away,_ Shiro. What kind of a monster—he didn’t mean it little flower. I’ll take care of you.”

Lance pressed his lips softly to the petals, speaking gently against their velvety skin. Shiro didn’t know whether to laugh or run. There was something weirdly erotic about the image that he didn’t want to address when considering a man he had known for barely 12 hours and would be spending a month with.

“Then keep it.”

He must have sounded gruffer then he intended, because the smile dropped entirely from Lance’s face as just nodded and walked into the lobby in front of Shiro.

The room was small, but clean and very modern. It barely matched the somewhat grungy city exterior and Shiro was relieved to see the smiling face of the young woman behind the counter instead of another grumpy old man. It had been fun at the time, but Shiro didn’t exactly want a repeat performance so soon.  

Once again, Lance beat him to her, speaking in rapid Spanish as he checked Shiro in. He watched him carefully this time, the way his hands moved as he spoke. Lance really was young, probably younger then Shiro by a few years.

Lance leaned on the counter, tilting his head closer to the girl. Shiro couldn’t help but be fascinated by the way her cheeks stained red as they spoke, the words unintelligible to him but the body language familiar enough. Her fingers twisted her hair in that gloriously cute way that Shiro, and apparently Lance, loved.

He felt transfixed as Lance pulled out his wallet, digging into his back pocket and drawing Shiro’s eye in slow motion. He pulled out a card and handed it to her while she laughed good naturedly and typed something rapidly into the computer.

She handed Lance two keys, and the card, his ID Shiro guessed. Lance grinned even wider, words falling from his lips like gold leaves as he took her hand and kissed the middle knuckle so her face exploded into an embarrassed smile.

Lance was smiling still when he picked up the rose from the counter and turned back to Shiro.

Shiro had no idea what kind of face he was making, only vaguely aware that is mouth was hanging open a little and that whatever he looked like had Lance’s charming smile turning razor sharp. Or maybe it was a trick of the light, or the jet lag that made Shiro’s torso an anchor, weighing him down into the postmodern style lobby couch, and Lance was just simply smiling and Shiro was losing his mind.

“Ready?”

He nodded dumbly and somehow found the strength to sit up, retrieve his bag from its place at his feet, and follow Lance to the cramped elevator in the corner.

“Here, your key.”

Lance passed him one of the two keys in his hand as the rickety elevator door closed and they started their ascent.

“You’re stay here, too?”

Shiro looked at him curiously, his hands obviously empty of any bags but Lance just laughed.

“I sent my stuff ahead. You didn’t actually think I would carry my luggage around when I picked you up?”

Lance looked at him in what Shiro felt was undeserved disbelief.

“You picked me up in a moped.”

“It had a side car!”

The elevator door opened and they were forced to stop bickering as they squeezed past a couple making out right in front of them as they merely grunted and stumbled in to fill the space Shiro and Lance had just occupied.

They looked at each other in wide eyed silence as the elevator doors closed again and the couple descended away from them.

“So…”

“Yup.”

Shiro smirked a little as they walked to their doors, the numbers on their cards putting them side by side.

“That looked fun though.”

Lance laughed a little to himself as he fumbled it his key card, probably not expecting Shiro to even hear.

“I bet if you called the girl down at the front desk…”

He trailed off suggestively, not exactly wanting to say the words out loud.

Lance laughed even harder, shaking his head before looking Shiro slowly up and down.

“She was cute but, I’m working.”

The blood seemed to rush entirely to Shiro’s face as Lance gave him a slow once over again, somehow managing to fit the key card in just fine now that he was no longer looking.

“Do you want to go out again tonight, or…?”

Shiro shook his head and thankfully Lance understood, even though the evening light was still streaming through the windows on either side of the hallway.

“Night, Shiro.”

Shiro fumbled with his own card for several long minutes before finally managing to open the door.

There were rose petals on the carpet, leading to the bed, which was also covered in roses. Shiro kind of wanted to find a time machine to go back and shoot himself because there was only so much he could take.

He couldn’t find the energy to clear them off, dropping his bag on the floor at the foot of the bed and flopping face first into a mouthful of floral. He hated these reminders of his ex, but even worse, he hated the weird twisting sensation in his stomach that had made him forget her, for just a second, when Lance had looked at him like he had in the hallway.

When his phone went off around 2am, a loud beep letting him know it was dying, he realized he must have fallen asleep in his clothes. His prosthetic itched and ached from where he had forgotten to take it off. He struggled out of his shirt, rolling on the crumpled petals and grinding them into the comforter instead of sitting up to unhook the strap across his chest.

His phone beeped again, a plaintive cry that has Shiro groaning out in frustration and stumbling around in the dark to find the charger in his bag. The screen lit up when he finally plugged it in, momentarily blinding him as he squinted at the notifications filling his screen.

\----

_Keith (8:00pm):_

_Hey did you make it?_

_Hunk: (8:22pm):_

_I’m assuming you made it but you should probably call Keith soon, he’s starting to freak._

_Unknown (11:35pm):_

_did you refund the tickets?_

_Unknown (11:43pm):_

_Shiro_

_Unknown (12:12:am):_

_I guess you aren’t going to answer me._

_Unknown (12:32am):_

_you’re such a child_

\----

Shiro shot a quick text to Keith and Hunk, assuring them that he was here and alive before deleting the texts from his ex. It probably _was_ childish that he had deleted her number, but he couldn’t deal with it, especially not now, alone and in the dark in a strange city.

He just wasn’t capable of that.

Instead, he carefully sat is prosthetic on the hotel desk, unbutton his pants and push them off one handed and climbed back into bad, this time pulling the covers down in the hopes that he would be able to forgo the inevitable crick in his neck from his earlier awkward sleeping position.

 

 

When he woke up the second time, brilliant sunlight was filtering in through the gauzy hotel curtains and someone was banging on his door and calling out his name in a voice way too cheerful for what Shiro assumed was way too early.

“Shiro, come on! We have a lot to see today! I have breakfast!”

The promise of food and the raging sleep deprivation headache was what finally pulled Shiro out of bed and to the door.

Lance grinned as he immediately thrust out a pastry and a cup of black coffee.

“Anyway we have…oh…”

Shiro motioned him in, his prosthetic still laid out on the table so he could only take the coffee and hold the door open with his shoulder to let Lance past him and into the room.

“I didn’t realize…”

Lance was looking everywhere but at Shiro, his eyes seemed to track to the desk before flickering away hurriedly. It finally dawned on Shiro that Lance hadn’t _realized_ that Shiro wore a prosthetic. He had been wearing a jacket all of yesterday, and his prosthetic was high enough quality that if his hand was all that was visible and you didn’t touch it, it wouldn’t be immediately obvious.

Shiro was used to this reaction and only shrugged and sipped his coffee while he waited it out.

“Should  I hand…I _mean…_ do you _want_ the pastry?”

It looked like a croissant wrapped in a napkin from what Shiro could tell. He was leaning up against the desk and set his coffee down so he could reach out and take the food.

He was surprisingly starving and wondered if they could maybe stop wherever this had come from and get more.

When he looked up, Lance was blushing again, but this time, his eyes were trained elsewhere, at Shiro’s bare stomach to be more precise. The humor at startling Lance was suddenly quickly slipping away as he realized he was standing there just in his briefs.

“So, where are we going?”

Lance looked up, surprised to find Shiro done with his food and looking at him expectantly, his own blush dusting the high points of his cheeks.

“Basilica de la Sagrada familia, first. I have some other plans, too.”

Shiro raised his eyebrow expectantly but Lance shook his head, a teasing smile on his lips.

“Nope, now get dressed and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

When Shiro walked him to the door, he watched the way Lance hesitated at the threshold. He braced himself for some kind of disturbed comment about his prosthetic. It had taken his ex almost a year to be able to look at it when he had been discharged and come back without his arm.

To his surprise, Lance looked determined and a little sympathetic when he finally turned around.

“Do you need help, getting your arm on, I mean?”

Shiro’s eyes shot open, too shocked to speak for a second. He remembered the look of mild revulsion the first time he had asked his ex to help him put it on and how she had squinted and wrinkled her nose the whole time she was touching it.

When he looked into Lance’s eyes, nothing but pure concern reflected back.

“I’ve got it, but thanks.”

He smiled and Lance seemed to understand that he wasn’t rejecting the offer out of irritation or offense and they both sighed a little in relief as the tension dissipated.

“I’ll see you downstairs?”

Lance nodded, offering up one of his own blinding smiles before turning on his heel and heading back towards the elevator.

Shiro let the door swing shut, blocking out the hallway and Lance, who was now fidgeting in front of the elevator doors impatiently.

Something told Shiro this was going to be a long day…well, a long month really.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a trial and a HALF to get this out tonight, but I wanted to maintain my Saturday update schedule. Slow burn is so difficult! I'm having a hard time judging if I'm going at the right pace to be totally honest. 
> 
> Again, thank you all for the comments and kudos! It really is what keeps me motivated to maintain the update schedule!

Shiro wasn’t really sure what he had expected when Lance had mentioned the Basilica de la Sagrada familia. To be perfectly honest, when he had made plans to travel Europe, he hadn’t put much effort into researching the various cities they would be going to.

He had expected a significantly larger portion of his time to be spent in hotel rooms and giving the tour guide the day off and being very sheepish in the morning when said guide would give them a knowing look.

So, it was somewhat of a shock when their taxi pulled up to their destination, and the Basilica loomed over the street like a modernist sentinel, taking stock of the entire city.

Shiro fumbled a little as he tried to get out of the cab and nearly stumbled, his eyes glued to what he heard Lance describe as the nativity façade of the church. Vaguely, he could hear the cab driver and Lance speaking in Spanish, both laughing a little, no doubt at Shiro, as he finally exited the vehicle without performing a face plant on the sidewalk in the process.

After paying their fare, Lance eventually moved to his side, the cab driving off and exposing their backs to the sea of tourists crossing the street to get a closer view. Shiro couldn’t blame them even when they jostled him and Lance had to reach out and steady him with a hand on his elbow. There was an eagerness to move closer he could barely describe.  

“So, what do you think?”

“It’s beautiful.”

The little sigh of relief from Lance surprised Shiro, who finally managed to turn his eyes away from the Basilica and back to Lance, who looked a little sheepish.  

“I was worried you wouldn’t be interested. A guy, on his honeymoon…alone…”

Lance rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, a gesture Shiro had already seen him do a few times in just the past 24 hours they had been together.

Shiro turned back to the façade, tracking the intimately detailed carvings that crawling up the walls, depicting the nativity scene leading up to the larger than life spires that pierced the sky. Shiro wasn’t sure how anyone could be here and not be in complete and total awe.

When he turned back to Lance, it was to catch him smiling back, his hand still absently holding Shiro’s elbow as tourists rushed by them.

“Ready?”

Lance tilted his head towards the doors, where cool air was blasting out in heavy gusts as people moved into the sanctuary. Shiro nodded and let Lance lead the way to the line at the door.

When they finally made it through the entrance, Shiro’s breath caught on an inhale, only barely stifling a choking sound in the crowded room. Everyone and everythingseemed to be moving through rainbow prisms, the light refracting through the surrounding stained-glass windows in fractured bursts of light.

Lance had moved a few feet ahead, his body surrounded in shining blue light. He looked almost haloed, his skin glowing in the arc like something otherworldly, an ethereal creature Shiro had caught by mistake. He must have been in this very church a hundred times, but his eyes were still shining when he looked around for Shiro, smile splitting his face in two.

Something about the light and Lance’s dark skin and the purplish hue of his normally blue eyes in the charged atmosphere struck Shiro also almost fae like.

“You’re purple!”

Lance was giggled, breaking Shiro’s trance, and pointing down at Shiro’s feet, where he was standing in his own circle of light, his skin a distinctly violet hue. When he lifted his arms up and held them farther out, he could make out green and yellow and blue shimmering over his hands, the color slightly clearer on the smooth exterior of his prosthetic.

People were forced to walk around him, but Shiro couldn’t bring himself to mind as he side stepped so that his legs were yellow and blue, his arms red and green, and his head a shade of almost too light purple.

“How do I look?”

Lance always seemed to laugh with his entire body, hands clasped to his mouth as his torso shook and his weight shifted on his feet. He watched, enchanted as Lance doubled over.

Distracted, Shiro flinched when a particularly aggressive woman shoved hard at his arm, forcing him to stumble out of his trick and closer to where Lance was still enshrined in blue.

“You-you looked beautiful!”

Lance was still giggling and even though he probably had a bruise forming on his shoulder, Shiro couldn’t stop smiling the rest of the tour.

He let Lance guide him silently through the crypt and the Tomb of Gaudi, humming in interest as they went. Lance seemed to know so much about the Basilica, his voice a constant low murmur in Shiro’s ear as he pointed at particularly interesting pieces or facts about the architecture.

Shiro couldn’t even begin to remember half of what Lance said, but it sounded important and he enjoyed hearing it, even if he forgot most of it instantly. It was enjoyable to let Lance ramble and fill the silences, taking Shiro’s hand or elbow whenever he wanted to get his attention quickly.

It was strange, how easily Shiro accepted the casual touches. Strangers touching him wasn’t exactly something Shiro typically encouraged, but he found himself leaning into Lance whenever they entered a crowded area, reaching out to grasp the back of Lance’s shirt so he didn’t lose him in a surge of people.

It was ages later when suddenly found himself outside again, blinking in the brilliant white light of the sun, a little too much now unfiltered despite the airy and well light atmosphere of the Basilica. They had exited through some kind of side door, and given the way Lance was furtively looking right and left, probably not through an approved exit.

Shiro smirked a little as they skirted the façade of the church, making their way back around to where they had started.

The sun had moved high into the sky and Shiro could feel his stomach grumbling as Lance stretched at the top of the stairs, his shirt riding up a little bit and forcing Shiro to look elsewhere.

(A family of three was lathering on huge amounts of sunscreen on a chubby baby in a sunhat just a few feet away.)

“Lunch?”

Lance tossed him a look and a smile over his shoulder and Shiro felt a little struck dumb as his attention was redirected and he once again followed Lance down the stairs and across an unfamiliar city.

 

Shiro was glad they had forgone the moped today. It felt good to just walk through the city, watching people experience their daily lives in a place so similar yet so far removed from his own. Maybe his life would have been different if he had been born in Spain, or Japan like his parents. It was a dangerous line of thinking, but something he couldn’t help when he watched a young couple holding hands across the street.

“So, where are we going?”

Lance was at his side, whistling and swinging his arms as they walked. He seemed to know where he was going, taking turns confidently, but he wasn’t reading street signs and that worried Shiro just a little bit.

“Don’t worry! I have a plan!”

The fact that Lance knew to reassure him _not to worry_ definitely had Shiro worrying just a bit more.  

“Lance—”

“Shiro! I’ve got this. I am the tour guide! You are the guided! Let me _guide_ you to lunch.”

Lance’s tongue peeked out between his lips, cheeky and teasing as he skipped ahead of Shiro before stopping at an intersection a few yards ahead.

“Alright, Mr. Tour Guide, which way?”

Biting at his knuckle, Lance read each street sign through twice before pointing somewhat a little too decisively straight ahead.

“Do you actually—”

“Yes! I know where I’m going!”

Well, it honestly wasn’t like Shiro had anywhere better to be. Although, he did know if Lance didn’t get him somewhere to eat fast, he was stopping at the first place he saw burgers.

 

As it turned out, Lance did actually know where he was going…mostly. If, by circling the block a few times and ending up in the same intersection before making a “third times the charm!” declaration that just happened to be right, you called that “knowing where you are going” that is.

“I told you I had it, Shiro!”

Shiro grunted, gesturing between them vaguely caveman style. It had been an hour since they had left the Basilica and Shiro was starving. He knew he was being rude and was struck by a memory several years old where Hunk had referred to Shiro and Keith as the “hungry bears” the first time he had ever seen them like this at an amusement park.

(Keith had almost got them kicked out by ripping off the head of a mascot before Hunk had shoved a churro in his hand and told him to eat).

Thankfully, Lance seemed merely amused as he guided Shiro over to a little outdoor café and ordered four plates of croquettes that he then shoved three of into Shiro’s hands before picking the only empty table at the edge of the street.

Shiro had barely reached the table before shoving a piping hot croquette in his mouth, too late to see the way steam had billowed out of Lance’s when he had broken it in half on his paper plate. Through sheer hunger and the determination of someone who was in public and not about to embarrass themselves, Shiro didn’t spit it out, forcing it down his throat with a pained grimace and ignoring the wide-eyed looks of concern Lance was sending him over his own food (that he was oh so delicately blowing air on to cool down).

“Are-are you okay?”

Shiro’s eyes were watering, tears streaming down his cheeks as he felt every inch of progress of the scalding food down his throat, through his chest, and into his stomach.

“Fine.”

The words were choked out, and he could see the edges of Lance’s mouth curling up into a barely repressed grin even through the veil of tears.

“Are you still hungry or—”

Shiro growled weakly, pawing at the three plates in front of him and pulling them away from any potential invaders of his food territory.

Lance covered his mouth, the ever-present smile still visible between his fingers. Shiro noticed Lance always seemed to be on the edge of laughing or smiling. It was nice. It reminded him of Hunk, actually.

“I’m assuming that means you’ll survive.”

Shiro rolled his eyes, still nonverbal from hunger even as he felt around the burnt parts of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. He would be lucky if he could taste the rest of the croquettes, to be honest.

They ate in silence after that, Lance sniping one of Shiro’s croquettes for himself while he was distracted and winking when Shiro noticed. By the time they were done, Shiro felt good, even as the roof of his mouth felt slightly blistered. He even found himself smiling as he watched a little girl playing in a nearby fountain.

“Is Shiro back, or am I still talking to the grumpmister?”

Startled, Shiro turned back to apologize, already embarrassed by his behavior, but he should have known that Lance was joking, his expression teasing and gentle as he rearranged their empty plates on the table.

“Sorry, about that. When I get hungry I…”

There wasn’t really an excuse for being an adult and going nonverbal just because you had missed lunch, but...

“I wouldn’t like you when you’re hungry?”

Lance offered helpfully and Shiro let out a sheepish chuckle.

“Yeah, that.”

Lance hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head a little as he looked Shiro over.

“I don’t know. You weren’t too bad.”

Shiro was suddenly irresistibly reminded of the way his cheeks had heated up when he had been choking on a croquette. He wished he had the same excuse now.

Thankfully, Lance seemed to take pity on him, standing before Shiro could find something to say and pointing off towards a cluster of tents and people surrounding tables just across the road.

“There’s an outdoor market over here I think you’ll like and I would _die_ for some chocolate right now.”

 

They spent the rest of the day wondering through purple tents and bargaining for hats and bags and blocks of chocolate that looked good but Shiro had no idea what they were.

“Why am _I_ carrying _your_ stuff. I thought I was the client.”

Lance waved a hand imperiously as he looked around the street for a cab.

“Yes, but _you_ are also the one with all the muscles.”

Shiro had noticed he had been spending an awful lot of time blushing since arriving in Spain and chose not to respond in favor of adjusting the frankly astonishing number of bags in his hands.

“Is there even a fridge in the hotel?”

Lance hummed something noncommittal as he finally got a cab to pull over and at least helped Shiro to climb into the back seat and arrange the bags between them. After Lance gave the driver directions, he immediately started rummaging through their things, nearly spilling herbs and trinkets across the floorboards in the process.

“What are you looking for?”

“Chocolate!”

There were five fully stuffed bags between them, the sixth trapped between Shiro’s feet and also apparently the one containing the bars and blocks of chocolate that Lance had deemed _absolutely necessary for a trip to Barcelona, Shiro._

Shiro had been just about to lean over and get it for Lance when he suddenly had a lap full of Lance and an arm digging between his legs.

“Almost…got it!”

Lance pulled a chocolate bar out, waving it triumphantly in Shiro’s face, entirely oblivious of what had just happened.

When Shiro looked up at the cab driver, he was smirking at them and actually offered Shiro a wink.

“Do you want some?”

By the time Shiro had recovered from _that_ little interaction, Lance’s cheeks were stuffed chipmunk style with chocolate, little smears decorating his bottom lip as he held out the remaining row of the bar for Shiro to take.

Shiro took it and bit into it curiously, blinking in surprise as the floral taste of lavender filled his mouth. It was unlike anything he had ever eaten before and it took several more bites to determine if he even liked it.

“It’s good!”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised!”

Lance wasn’t looking at him though, digging around instead for one of the bottles of sparkling water they had bought on a whim.

By the time the cab pulled up to their hotel, Lance had gone through two bars of chocolate, a bottle of sparkling water, and nearly half a block of cheese and Shiro was in awe as he watched Lance’s slim figure emerge from the cab.

“Where does it all go?”

Lance looked at him curiously but Shiro just shook his head, taking each bag dutifully as Lance handed them his way before paying for the cab and sending the driver on his way.

The same girl from the night before was at the hotel lobby, but Lance only waved and smiled at her this time, moving ahead of Shiro to hit the elevator button. They sorted their findings in the hallway and he caught himself walking Lance to the door, helping him with the five out of six bags that belonged to him.

“Thanks, Shiro.”

The smile this time was the same from the night before, warm, considering. Shiro felt his stomach knot as he passed the last bag to Lance and waved awkwardly before turning back to his own door.

 

The rest of their week in Spain passed much the same. They visited other parts of Catalonia and shopped in the little local boutiques. Every day Shiro was astounded by the architecture, the culture, and the long slope of Lance’s neck as he considered trinkets at street side vendors.

Shiro’s flesh hand had a permanent set of crescent moon marks the shape and size of his nails, first to remind himself of who he was, what he was supposed to be doing, but eventually just to stop himself from reaching out and tucking the fly away strands of Lance’s hair behind his ear when he laughed and clapped for street performers.

It had only been a week, and Shiro was finding it too easy to forget that Lance was being paid to take him around Europe and not that they were on a trip together, that he was supposed to be on this trip with someone else.

He figured he was lonely, that it could have been anyone and Shiro would have felt like this.

But, knowing that intellectually, didn’t stop his heart from beating a little too quickly when Lance looked at him, or the dream he had on their last night in the city, where Lance came to his room and crawled into his bed and he was allowed to kiss the delicate curve of Lance’s smile and feel the swell of his back in his hands.

It was a relief then, to be moving on to Paris, to feel the exhaustion of travel and to be going to a place where Shiro wouldn’t have to hear Lance’s tongue working around the rolled Spanish r’s and setting his skin on fire.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is a very minor description of an anxiety attack due to a fear of heights

When the cab pulled up to the Barcelona Saints train station, it took Shiro a moment to remember why. Shiro didn’t particularly _like_ trains. He thought they were a long way to get somewhere you could get to way faster by plane.

But his Ex had thought it would be romantic so he had given in and booked the train to the Gare de Lyon in Paris.

Looking around the train station, Shiro wasn’t exactly sure what she had expected, but it was about what he had thought. It looked like an airport to get on a very slow plane. The station was industrial looking, and Shiro felt bored and fidgety as they waited in line to have their luggage x-rayed.

Lance was peering at him curiously, making little abortive gestures to grab his sleeve or call his attention to things before pulling back.

“I’m fine.”

Shiro winced at how sharp his voice sounded. It wasn’t Lance’s fault that they were in this predicament. For the first time in the past few days, Shiro let his features soften and looked at Lance like he had been wanting to since the Basilica.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault I’m just…I keep thinking about… _trains are so stupid._ ”

A few people jumped, startled by his outburst, but Lance’s entire face transformed as he started to laugh.

“Is that—is _that_ what’s wrong?”

Shiro’s cheeks were starting to heat as more and more people turned to watch them in line. A security guard looked as if she were deciding rather to intervene or not and Shiro instinctively wrapped his arm around Lance’s shoulder to pull him close and let her know they were together.

Well, together in the train station not…not _together_ together. Obviously.

Despite that mental correction, over their past week, Shiro had learned Lance was a tactile person, the arm Shiro had placed around his shoulder barely phasing him beyond a curious look. Shiro braced himself for some kind of question, but even that never came. Instead, Lance chattered about how nice First Class was on the train and how Shiro would love it and how nice the view would be.

Shiro couldn’t bring himself to move his arm, it felt heavy and weighed down around Lance’s bony shoulders, like it had fused there. He had forgotten, a little, what it felt like to have someone pressed up close to him like that so casually.

He wondered what would happen if he ignored the guard and pushed forward with Lance through the line. In the end, Shiro was forced to remove his arm when they reached the front of the line and the guard called them forward one at a time.

Lance shot him a little smile as if he knew what he had been thinking before he walked forward first and placed his bag on the conveyor belt. Shiro was allowed to follow next, but Lance was still a few feet ahead, sending him little teasing glances over his shoulder as he went.

Something primal reared up in Shiro at that, made him want to reach out and grab Lance pull him close and growl. He wanted to bite and refuse to let go and…the instinct was so unfamiliar it made him stop short, catching a sullen teenager off guard so that he ran headfirst into Shiro’s back, breaking the spell.

“Hey man, watch where you’re—oh…um…I’m sorry.”

Shiro blinked, watching in confusion as the kid’s angry face morphed into a brilliant blush, eyes trailing across Shiro’s shoulders and face and… _oh._

“Uh…no problem.”

Collecting his bags as quickly as possible, Shiro shuffled over to Lance, embarrassed enough that his ears were burning as Lance heaved heavy giggle laden breaths into his lungs.

“I think you have an admirer.”

“Shut up.”

Lance pouted but there was no heat in Shiro’s voice and the edges of Lance’s mouth were still curled up into a little smile as they looked for their compartment.

 

The ride itself took about six and half hours of utterly dull and useless time spent sitting and watching flat planes flash by across the window.

At one point, around roughly half way through, Shiro grumpily informed Lance that they would have already been at their hotel if they had flown, ignoring the fact that Lance had had zero input on their mode of transportation.

Lance pointedly handed him a granola bar he had picked up from the hotel gift store in Barcelona and smirked at Shiro’s answering blush.

Shiro ate the granola bar and looked out the window instead, feeling a little better now that he had something on his stomach.

Lance fell asleep not long after that, still smirking a little.

 

It was almost like a romcom, the way Lance’s head gently lolled onto Shiro’s shoulder. He had been asleep for ten minutes or so, shifting uncomfortably on his chair so it wasn’t like Shiro hadn’t expected the development. But, on the other hand, he totally _hadn’t_ expected the development.  

They still had almost 3 hours left of their trip but Shiro felt like holding his breath so Lance didn’t move or shift away. It was crazy, he should _want_ Lance to move. He barely _knew_ Lance yet he was letting him sleep on his shoulder and drool a little onto his shirt, if the damp feeling seeping onto his skin was any indication.

 Except, he didn’t want Lance to move. He liked the heavy weight of Lance’s head on his shoulder, and the little unconscious way he had curled a hand around Shiro’s arm where it sat between them on the arm rest.

Shiro had never sat that still for that long before in his life. By the time the train pulled into the station in Paris, he had a horrible crick in his neck and his head was throbbing. Lance pulled away as the train slowed, the change in movement finally waking him up although he didn’t seem to notice that he had been using Shiro as a living pillow until he spotted the wide patch of drool on his sleeve.

“Please don’t tell me I drooled on you.”

Lance’s face was bright red, his fingers frantically wiping at the drool but with zero effect. Shiro really couldn’t help but tease him. He kept his face entirely neutral, his voice as deadpan as he could possibly make it as he spoke.

“You didn’t drool on me.”

Lance squinted up at him, his hand now pressed flat to Shiro’s chest in amazement.

“You’re actually an asshole, aren’t you?”

Shiro couldn’t have stopped the grin even if he wanted to.

“You bet.”

It was worth it to watch Lance storm off the train in a huff, only to have to storm back on because he forgot his bags, cheeks so hot he could probably set fire to the whole place as he did.

 

Much to Shiro’s relief, Lance was not very good at speaking French. He could read it perfectly fine, but when it came to stringing an actual sentence together…well he tried, anyway. It mostly came out like a child stumbling through reading their first book. Not even remotely sexy at all, thankfully.

“Ou est le…l’hotel…er…s’il tu—s’il VOUS plait…?”

“Quel hotel?”

Lance looked stricken, rifling through their papers as the cab driver became increasingly impatient as Lance moved around the same three papers in his hands over and over again.

It was Shiro’s turn to laugh as he snatched their reservations from Lance’s hand and showed the driver the name of the hotel and address. Thankfully, he looked a little mollified after that and even helped them put their bags in the trunk.

Lance looked shame faced, his eyes downcast, and Shiro couldn’t help but poke at him a little, pressing his prosthetic finger into the tender bulge of Lance’s cheek as he sulked and forcing a smile.

“Don’t worry Lancey Lance, we’ll figure out the big French world together.”

After a week of Lance making Shiro blush and hide his face in Barcelona, it was nice to have the tables turned for a minute and see the blood fill Lance’s face instead.

 

Unlike on the day that Shiro arrived in Barcelona, it was still early when they got to their hotel in Paris. They stopped in only to check in and drop their bags but were out the door and back on the streets in no time.

“I want to see the Eiffel tower!”

Lance had grown more demanding over the past week, pushing Shiro this way and that and almost entirely ignoring the original itinerary, not that Shiro minded. It did make it harder for Shiro to separate their lives, and remember Lance was being paid to be there, but he found himself trying less and less each day.

Much like in Spain, Shiro planned to let Lance lead him around by the nose. He startled only a little when Lance grabbed his wrist as they walked out of the lobby to pull him across the street and in the direction of the monument. Shiro at least felt confident that Lance wouldn’t get them lost this time, considering how close they were to the tower and how easy it was to spot even from the door outside of their hotel.  

Even so, Shiro caught Lance looking around and checking the direction of the tower every few feet and veering off course several times anyway.

“You know, you aren’t a very good tour guide.”

Lance stopped abruptly and dropped Shiro’s wrist, leaving a band of sweat behind on his skin.

“What?! I am an excellent tour guide.”

“Where are we?”

Shiro folded his arms and waited, cocking his head a little to the side as he watched Lance glance nervously around.

“On…the street in Paris?”

Shiro groaned, but he couldn’t help but laugh when his head in his hands.

“Close enough, lead on then.”

Without thinking, Shiro held his arm out again, and to his surprise, Lance took his wrist and started to pull, this time, in the direction of the Eiffel tower at least.

 

When they finally made it to the base of the tower, the first words out of Shiro’s mouth were:

“It’s so big!”

Lance didn’t stop laughing for 10 minutes. Every time he looked at Shiro then the tower then back to Shiro, he would burst into a fresh wave of giggles.

“Okay, I get it! That was a dumb thing to say!”

Lance only seemed to laugh harder as Shiro stomped over to the information booth, leaving Lance behind to get lost in a crowd of Ukrainian tourists.

Shiro seriously considered going up without him, until Lance’s thin hands were there, pulling at his sleeve and apologizing and laughing still. Shiro wordlessly handed over his ticket and Lance beamed.

They crowded in together, the last couple allowed onto an elevator already packed tight with sweaty bodies and overlapping languages. As the glass door closed and the elevator started to move, Shiro was surprised to see Lance’s smile turn brittle around the edges.

“It’s um...this is going to go up pretty high…isn’t it?”

At first, Shiro thought he was joking, making fun of him again for his earlier comment. But, Lance’s eyes were growing so wide and he could see himself reflected back in them.

“Lance?”

He jostled a little closer to Shiro, his grip tight on the sleeve of his jacket.

“I…did I mention I was afraid of heights?”

It was instinctual to pull Lance closer and croon in his ear, rocking them gently and ignoring the curious looks of their fellow passengers.

“It’s okay, you’re fine.”

Lance gave a little hysterical sob and Shiro held him tighter.

“I’m sorry, this is so stupid.”

Shiro shushed him, and held him even tighter until he was sure he could hear Lance’s ribs creak under the strain.

_This stop: the Eiffel tour restaurant. Please exit or remain clear of the doors to continue to the top._

It wasn’t even a choice for Shiro. He shuffled Lance out the door, ignoring his weak little moans of _no, wait, Shiro._

There was a bench just a few feet away from where the elevator was now leaving them behind where he pulled Lance down and continued to cradle him close.

“I really am—the—the worst tour guide.”

Lance laughed weakly, his head pressed to the curve of Shiro’s shoulder in stark parallel to just earlier that day on the train.

“No, no you aren’t, Lance.”

He could tell Lance wanted to contradict him, but Shiro shushed him instead, gathering him as close as he dared without pulling him into his lap.

“Do you normally cradle strange tour guides like this?”

Maybe it was how they had been living out of each other’s pockets for the past week, or because Lance was feeling vulnerable and Shiro was _definitely_ feeling vulnerable, but the words slipped out either way, unmistakably flirty and telling.

“Only the cute ones.”

Lance didn’t laugh, like Shiro had expected. Instead, he just sighed, and took Shiro’s prosthetic hand and tried to calm his breathing.

 

They never did make it to the top of the tower. They spent the next hour, sitting outside the Eiffel tower restaurant, watching elevators come and go. People who were dressed significantly nicer than Lance’s faded jeans and Shiro’s old football t-shirt gave them critical looks that they ignored.

Shiro was getting hungry and wondered if the restaurant would even let them in, but he doubted it. Besides, Lance was leaning heavily against his shoulder, his posture slowly drooping as he finally calmed down and probably wouldn’t even be able to make it through a full meal.

“Can you stand?”

Lance nodded, but wobbled a little when he tried to get to his feet. Shiro would have let him sleep right there if he thought it was feasible. Instead, he did the next best thing and googled the nearest ice cream place on his phone.

 

“Haagen Dazs?”

Scrunching his nose up in confusion, Lance let Shiro pull him into the chilly ice cream parlor. He didn’t say much as Shiro ordered Lance two scoop of chocolate and two scoops of pistachio for himself, still leaning heavily into Shiro’s side, glad that he hadn’t been pushed away yet.

The store smelt amazing, the air spun with sugar as the attendant dished out their orders and took Shiro’s credit card with minimal fuss.

Lance took the offered cup and spun and followed Shiro back out the door and to the little tables lining the rue.

He knew he would be embarrassed tomorrow, when he had had a night sleep and was feeling more himself. But the panic from earlier left him muzzy and the creamy dessert on his tongue was better than he had expected.

“Good?”

Shiro had a bit of ice cream on the corner of his mouth when he spoke and Lance offered him a smile, wanting to reach out and thumb it away, but missed the opportunity as Shiro quickly wipe his lips with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, I like chocolate.”

“You should try this.”

It was obvious Shiro hadn’t thought this through, the way he just thrust the spoonful of pistachio across the table before turning stewed cherry red moments later. And Lance, Lance had no defense for that, either the offered ice cream or the look in Shiro’s eye that said he so badly wanted to pull his hand back but also maybe just wanting to see what would happen.

Lance’s lips closed around the spoon, licking the ice cream lightly, and watching Shiro curiously the whole time. Maybe if the circumstances had been different, it would have been sexual, it still was, vaguely. But, mostly, Lance was reminded of the way kids offered their crushes parts of their lunches and to play with their toys.

They finished the rest of their ice cream in relative silence. By the time they were done, Lance was at least feeling a little bit better and was able to walk the rest of the way back without Shiro’s help.

They were both still blushing when they made it to the door.

 

When they arrived it back to the hotel, Lance was honestly questioning why he hadn’t let Shiro just carry him. He fumbled with the elevator buttons three times before Shiro had to gently move him away and do it for him.

Lance felt like a zombie, moving through jello and fog

He almost completely missed the newspaper at his door, having entirely forgotten that he had asked for one when making the reservations for the trip so he could plan for his clients in a city he honestly wasn’t that familiar with.

It was pure coincidence that the paper was facing up in his hands when he picked it up, and that he recognized the little tuft of white hair printed in a grainy photo on the front.

Shiro was pulling the covers back for him but stopped when he heard Lance call out.

“Uh, Shiro?”

Shiro blinked, stunned to see what looked like his own face staring back from the paper underneath the headline _Art Thief at Large: Armed and Dangerous._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the ending, please don't expect an action arc to this. The fic is going to continue on in the same rom com way as before, with a little excitement coming up for fun.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Real life has the nasty habit of getting in the way sometimes.

The next morning, the newspaper sat on the breakfast table between them. 

There was a little cafe at their hotel that served reheated frozen pastries but the espresso was good. Shiro was on his third shot and contemplating a fourth as Lance nervously folded and unfolded the pages between them. 

Shiro idly thought that this wasn't really a cafe. Was a coffee cart and 3 tables in the corner of a lobby really a cafe?

"So, you aren't an art thief then?"

Lance had tried to make it a joke but Shiro could tell from the grimace on his lips that it had fallen flat for both of them. 

"No." 

Shiro took another sip of his espresso but found his cup somehow empty. 

"No, of course not. We were in Spain together last week, there is no way...unless..."

The paper was now out flat between them, what really did look like Shiro's face staring back, a little mischievous smirk on his lips that Shiro was sure had never been on his face before. 

"Lance, I'm not now, nor have I ever been, an art thief." 

"Right. Of course." 

Shiro waved his cup in the air so the barista would see and bring him another one. 

"It just really looks like--" 

"I know what it looks like."

Trust him, he knew. 

"Right." 

Shiro startled as Lance slammed his hands abruptly onto the table top, nearly toppling his empty cappuccino cup.

“Okay! I believe you, 100%, that is not you, just someone that looks a lot _like_ you. I’ve heard of doppelgangers! I’ve watched the SyFy channel!”

The words were so surprising, Shiro could only drop his head into his hands and laugh, helpless little giggles that had Lance smiling automatically back as the barista sat his espresso between them and beat a hasty retreat.

“You’ve watched the SyFy channel?”

Lance’s features morphed into a very serious pout, his hand lifting up into the Vulcan salute.

“Absolutely, Captain!”

“Well, beam me up Scotty.”

Lance bit his lip and grinned, dropping his hand on the table so that his and Shiro’s pinkies crossed and the picture of Shiro’s accidental twin was covered beneath his palm.

 

“So, it’s an arch…”

Lance turned and looked at Shiro, his eyebrows high and looking for the world like he was about to walk away and leave Shiro in the dust.

“It’s not an _arch._ It’s the Champs Elysees. It’s the most famous avenue in the world!”

Struggling to keep a straight face, Shiro turned to look around them with mock disinterest.

“So…it’s a road then.”

“Shiro!”

Unable to hold it anymore, Shiro smiled and grabbed Lance’s elbow, pulling him out of the way of a woman on a bicycle, mid-indignant flail.

“If it helps, it’s a beautiful road.”

Shiro wasn’t looking at the road though, his hand still gripping Lance’s elbow as he stared into his eyes, his smile turning warmer at the flush creeping across Lance’s cheeks.

“Yeah…um…yeah, that’s—that’s better.”

Shiro hummed a little, pulling Lance closer under the guise of keeping track of him in the increasing crowd, but mostly just to feel him jostle against his side as they moved.

In Shiro’s defense, he was a little distracted, listening to the quiet huffs of Lance breathing next time as they pushed through fellow tourists with single minded intensity to get to their first real monument of this leg of their trip.

The Eiffel tower definitely did not count.

So, he didn’t really feel like he could be blamed for missing the whispers and pointing that was starting to take up around them until it was almost too late.

 _Est-ce que c’est lui_?

_C’est lui!_

_Quelqu’un appelle la police!_

It was Lance who finally noticed, the people previously crushing them in suddenly backing off and leaving them in a bubble of space that felt even more oppressive then before.

“What’s going…”

Shiro followed Lance’s wide-eyed gaze to the newspaper clutched in a nearby woman’s hands. She looked pale, her eyes transfixed on Shiro like any moment he would jump out and yell _boo._

“We have to go.”

Grabbing his hand, Lance started yanking him off to the side towards a nearby alleyway. The people surrounding them parted like they were diseased and everyone around was afraid of catching.

Shiro could hear the police whistles not far off moments later even though they were momentarily alone in the dimness of the alley.

They ran.

Shiro wasn’t sure how long they had been running, only that there was a stitch in his side from all the time he had taken off from the gym and Lance didn’t seem to be fairing much better.

 “Why can’t we see _one single monument_ in this damn city?!”

Lance shouted as they continued to run, each breath a little wheezy as he struggled for air but not daring to slow down or stop.

Soon, sirens joined the whistles as they moved, dodging past bewildered tourists and locals with an agility Shiro didn’t know he had. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but it felt like he could hear the pounding of police boots right behind him, the sound of French voices calling out to _stop, thief_.

He startled when Lance suddenly pulled him into a tight alley way and behind a tall dumpster. Shiro was pressed up against him, the light barely filtering between the two roofs, streaming as a thin line between the crowded buildings and illuminating Lance’s shining face.

Somehow, miraculously, Lance was smiling, sweat running in rivulets down his temple and matting his hair into little dark curls.

It was somewhere between noticing the way Lance’s eyes were the same color as a robin’s egg and the sound of police offers running past the mouth of their alleyway, that Shiro kissed him.

Lance tasted salty, like sweat, and sweet like the chocolate croissant he had eaten for breakfast. It felt like the culmination of something as they hid behind a dumpster in a dim and dirty alleyway, something light and beyond where they were.

When Shiro pulled back, Lance actually looked shy, a new look on him that Shiro was already half in love with.

“Hi.”

Lance sounded a little husky, emotions clogging his voice and Shiro couldn’t help but to dart in and kiss him again, a quick peck that made them both blush.

“Hello.”

They stood there until they couldn’t hear anything else but their own breathing and life resuming as the disturbance of the police faded away before starting to run again.

 

The whistles and sirens never returned but they were too cautious to take it for a reprieve. Shiro didn’t plan on stopping until they were safely back in their hotel rooms and Lance seemed to be of a similar mind.

For once, Lance didn’t seem to question where he was going, darting in and out between alleyways, checking the sun and the surrounding skyline as they move throughout the less then reputable parts of the city.

Lance’s hand was still clasped in his, the sweat building up between their palms making Shiro’s grip slippery but he only laced their fingers tighter. Something told him not to let go, that he would lose the moment from earlier if he stopped touching Lance, and he wasn’t ready yet, wasn’t sure if he ever would be.

 

By some magic they made it back to their hotel without incident. The receptionist still smiled at them and waved as they walked across the lobby to the hotel, their hands still firmly locked together.

Shiro was doing his best to not look suspicious, but he felt harassed as he not so surreptitiously checked out the other guests lounging in the lobby.

Lance didn’t seem to be doing much better, his hand shaking a little in Shiro’s grip as they waited impatiently for the lift. He kept glancing over his shoulder, his body jerking in agitation until Shiro pulled him tight into his side, their hands still held together and making it awkward but neither minding it too much.

When the elevator doors finally opened, they shuffled inside, the silliness of it finally bringing a smile to Lance’s lips for the first time since they walked into the doors.

“We’re a mess.”

Shiro kissed Lance’s sweaty temple in response, still trying to calm his heartbeat enough to even speak, let alone process what had just happened.

The doors opened to their floor and Shiro finally let Lance go just enough to walk normally, but still holding him close. Lance hesitated when they made it to his door, his hand shifting against Shiro’s palm but not making any active attempts to let go.

“Would you…would you stay with me?”

Lance wasn’t looking at him, his gaze directed at a little discolored spot on the carpet where someone had probably dropped food and the staff hadn’t been able to get the stain out.

“Okay.”

Shiro’s hand felt weird when he finally let go of Lance, letting him search his pockets for his wallet and room key to let them in.

The room was the exact same as Shiro’s, of course, except Lance’s things were strewn around the room like they had been there for weeks instead of the past two days. Lance was standing in the middle of it all, looking around blankly before gazing back at Shiro a little helplessly.

“I’m sorry…I don’t…I can’t believe I’m making you comfort me when…I _mean—”_

Shiro moved without thinking, pulling Lance to his chest tight enough to hear the breath woosh out of his lungs. They stood like that, feeling each other shake, until Shiro’s arms started to ache and Lance started to fidget and they finally broke apart.

 

They ended up laying side by side on Lance’s bed, the curtains closed and casting the room into a pseudo night. They weren’t touching, but Shiro could still feel Lance only an inch away.

Shiro was outlining a water stain on the ceiling with his eyes when Lance’s voice pierced the semi-silence.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Unfortunately, Shiro had an idea of where this was going, but he only hummed in confirmation. He would have to answer it sooner or later, why not now.

“What happened?”

The rustling of covers and the feeling of Lance’s eyes on the side of his face let Shiro know he had turned his head to look at him but Shiro couldn’t return the movement just yet.

Instead, looking up at that same water spot, Shiro told him all of it and Lance listened.

He listened to the way Shiro’s Ex had reacted to finding out he was bisexual, how she had grown increasingly hostile towards Keith and Hunk.

“She knew Keith and I used to…back in school. But it had been so long, and he and Hunk are _perfect_ for each other…but it didn’t matter.”

Shiro couldn’t stop himself as he talked about buying the ring, how he had been so sure that proposing was the answer.

“I thought if I should her how committed I was, that she would stop and understand.”

The little hum of understanding was the only noise Lance made throughout the story. Of course, it hadn’t worked. Their relationship hadn’t worked for a while, why would marriage make it better?

“I guess I stopped trusting her when she…when she rejected me like that. And I guess she stopped trusting me then, too.”

It hurt to rehash it like this, to speak the words out loud and to make them real. Shiro cleared his throat a few times and gratefully took Lance’s hand when it pressed up next to his.

“And uh…a week before our wedding. She told me she was done. I don’t think I ever fully believed it wouldn’t work until then. I think I still hoped…but—”

Shiro coughed again, the same feelings of failure welling up inside him from before the trip. It struck him that it hadn’t actually been that long ago, a few weeks, really.

It felt both so distant, and so immediate, on the other side of the world. He was holding hands with a man he barely knew but felt like he had been with forever and it had been less than a month.

“You must think…I’m so pathetic.”

Lance sat up abruptly, his eyes fierce in the half-light and Shiro was reminded of the Basilica from just a week ago. His fae guide hallowed in light.

“No. I think you’re so strong and I think you didn’t deserve that and I think it’s sad that anyone could have you and not know how lucky they were. But I don’t think you’re pathetic, Shiro.”

Transfixed, Shiro watched as Lance pulled his knuckles up to his lips and kissed the rough skin there. His lips felt hot and chapped, just like they had under Shiro’s mouth a few hours earlier.

When Lance reached for his prosthetic, Shiro moved on autopilot, taking his hand and feeling his body flush hot as Lance repeated the kiss on the back of his prosthetic hand and then his palm.

Eventually, Lance curled up into Shiro’s side, his head on his chest, idly rubbing his hands along Shiro’s stomach in a soothing rhythm that Shiro hated to break but knew he had to.

“What are we going to do about the art thief?”

Lance blew out a raspberry against Shiro’s neck that had him rolling his eyes and pushing him away playfully before pulling him close again.

“I think…we should sleep on it and see what happens in the morning.”

Shiro could still see the sun high in the sky, its rays peaking in around the edges of their curtain. It couldn’t be much later than 3 o’clock, but they had a room service menu, and he wasn’t looking forward to moving the rest of the day anyway.

They would figure it out in the morning.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of action, then some serious fluff coming up

When Shiro woke up the next morning, he was soaked in sweat. The hotel air conditioner didn’t turn on automatically, and both of them had been a little busy last night to turn it on before crawling under the covers to sleep.

It also didn’t help that Lance was practically on top of him, their chests pressed close together, and Lance’s chin hooked over his shoulder so he was basically face down in the pillow.

“Wassthat noise?”

It was Shiro’s phone, the _X-files_ theme growing increasingly louder the longer it rang so that Lance was forced to sit up a little. His eyes were only half opened as he blearily watched Shiro blindly reach out towards then night stand.

He didn’t have to check the caller ID. Only one person had that particular ringtone in his phone, and that one person would probably eviscerate him if he missed anymore calls.

“Hey, Keith.”

Shiro winced a little at how rough his voice sounded, glaring playful at Lance’s teasing smile in response.

“Hey, did I wake you up?”

Shiro hummed a little in confirmation, tilting his head so Lance could tuck it his chin back into place. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his skin felt sleep warm against Shiro’s hand as he awkwardly tucked the phone in between his shoulder and chin so he could rub along Lance’s back.  

“Wait…isn’t it like…noon there?”

The accusation was heavy in Keith’s voice and Shiro tried to deflect, even if he was distracted by the restless shifting of Lance’s cheek against his.

“How’s Hunk?”

“Hunk’s fine and wants to know why you’re in Europe asleep at noon.”

Shiro could have sworn he heard what sounded like _Hunk is not wondering that, stop lying_ but knew he was probably in enough trouble as it was and shouldn’t point it out.

“I’m _fine_ Keith. Just having a rest day.”

“A _rest day.”_

Lance set back and give him a deeply amused look. He couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but Shiro could see him mouthing the words _rest day_ with a silly grin on his lips.

“Listen, just because we aren’t there to make you go out, doesn’t mean you can mope around in Europe. Go see the sites! Get out of the hotel! Aren’t you paying someone way too much money to show you around out there?”

It looked as if Lance had only just noticed that Shiro was shirtless, and that the hand that had been rubbing his back had fallen to cup the swell of his hip when he sat up. A slow blush was starting to fill his cheeks, his smiling turning a little more devious as he ran both hands teasingly up Shiro’s chest.

“ _Shiro!_ Are you listening to me?”

Lance leaned forward and placed a ghost of a kiss at Shiro’s collarbone.

“Of course I am.”

“Shiro…”

Lance was kissing his neck now, teeth scrapping gently along the tendon so that Shiro was forced to bite back a gasp.

“Keith, sorry I…uh…I gotta go.”

Untucking the phone from his shoulder, Shiro threw it aside. Even one handed, it was easy to flip Lance onto his back, grinning at the squeal of delight he got in response.

“What do you think you’re doing, huh?”

Lance only shrugged, arching closer under the guise of stretching his arms above his head. Shiro could feel his cheeks aching from smiling already, Lance was just so cute and easy to be around. But, despite that, and despite not wanting to break the moment, there was still something he had to say.

“I…uh…just wanted to clarify something.”

Face suddenly serious, Lance brought both his hands to brace against Shiro’s thighs, waiting calmly for him to continue.

“I think you’re beautiful, gorgeous really.”

The flush was back again, full force this time in cabernet along the swell of Lance’s cheeks.

“But, well…I’m not…I don’t want to…have sex…yet. I mean, _yet._ Obviously, I uh…want to at some point.”

The slight bulge in Shiro’s sleep pants was pretty much evidence to that, but emotionally, he just wasn’t ready.

Shiro felt a little nervous about looking at Lance, but he should have known he would see a smile. Lance was always smiling, had probably been smiling at Shiro the whole trip and he was only just now appreciating it.

Lance didn’t say anything. Instead, he sat up and pressed a chaste kiss to Shiro’s cheek.

“Want me to go get lunch? There’s a really great place a couple blocks away.”

Nodding dumbly, Shiro crawled off of Lance (after a little reminder that he had him pinned to the bed, which was all kinds of embarrassing.)

Was it really that easy?

“You should probably stay here, just in case.”

Lance was shifting around on the ground, looking for a clean shirt to put on from the pile that had spilled out of his suitcase and onto the floor.  

Once Lance was dressed, Shiro kissed him up against the sliding closet mirror before watching him dart out of sight and close the front door firmly behind him.

 

It was weird, leaving Shiro behind. They had been basically attached at the hip for a week and a half. Lance kept looking over his shoulder to see if Shiro was lagging and reaching out to grab his elbow to pull him across the street.

A part of Lance knew that he should be cautious. Shiro was fresh off a serious relationship and a really bad break-up. Technically, he was on his honeymoon! Every advice columnist to ever exist would have yelled at him to run, run like the wind, Lance.

Except, when Lance pictured Shiro, fumbling his way through a French dictionary, and buying him ice cream, and shoving hot croquettes into his mouth with all the gusto of a 12-year-old with a hot pocket, he couldn’t picture Shiro using anyone for a rebound.

Shiro was just so earnestly straight forward and kind. Everything about him, from his voice to his scent to the way his nose crinkled up when he was trying to read French, it all inherently appealed to Lance.  

Because of that, at least for now, Lance wasn’t going to question anything. He was going to kiss Shiro as much as he let him, and right now, he was going to buy them lunch.

 

When Lance made it to the little café he had found on his phone, he was surprised to see a line out the door. He briefly thought about looking for another place, but the line seemed to be moving pretty quickly so he decided to stay and wait it out.

In fact, he was almost to the door when it opened to reveal Shiro, a sandwich already in hand.

“Shiro? What are you doing? I thought you were back at the hotel?”

Shiro turned to look at him, confusion pretty evident in his eyes, before a slow smirk spread across his lips.

“Well aren’t you cute.”

Lance blinked, looking around at the other people in line as if to confirm that he was not dreaming, and was in fact talking to Shiro.

“Uh…are you feeling okay?”

Licking his lips a little, Shiro sidled closer, one hand reaching out to touch Lance’s hip and immediately setting off alarm bells in Lance’s head.

“Let me see your hands.”

Shiro laughed, holding out his hands, one still holding the sandwich, the other face up and empty, both entirely flesh.

“Holy shit.”

“Listen, baby, I don’t know what kind of hand kink you’re into, or who Shiro is, but I bet I can show you a good time.”

Lance had to think fast. There had to be something…he vaguely remembered passing a police officer directing traffic on his way here, but would that be enough?

“I bet you could show me a really good time.”

Not-Shiro looked a little surprised, but it quickly morphed into interest as he pulled Lance closer, his free hand now digging into the meat of Lance’s ass.

“Oh definitely. You got a room around here, sweetheart?”

“Of course. Follow me.”

Barely biting back a grimace, Lance let the guy take his hand, pulling him back the way he came. They walked for almost a block before Lance got an idea, he was just glad the cop was still in the street, and that Not-Shiro didn’t seem all that worried about him.

There was a street vendor up ahead, a woman selling croissants and coffee, with a little newspaper stand nearby.

Lance had to admit, this wasn’t his best plan. In all honesty, it probably wouldn’t even work. It was a blunt force tool where delicate precision was needed. But, he at least had to try, because right now, he had no idea how they would get out of the country without some serious hassle.

When they got within a couple feet of the stand, Lance smiled coyly up at Not-Shiro, trailing long fingers down his arm teasingly.

“I just want to get a little snack, to keep my strength up.”

Not-Shiro laughed, pulling Lance close and slotting their hips together. It felt surreal, to see Shiro’s face, but to know this man was anything but Shiro, that Shiro was tucked safely away in his hotel room.

“You’ll need all the strength you can get.”

Lance resisted the urge to role his eyes, and even made what he considered a passably convincing act of reluctance when he stepped away.

It wasn’t hard, to pick up one of the newspapers, throwing Not-Shiro a seductive little smirk as approached the counter. Lance’s French may be horrible, but the old pointer finger was universal.

When the women looked up at him, smiling, he immediately pointed down to the front page, where Not-Shiro’s face was still printed over the top story. He gestured nearly imperceptibly to where the guy was cooling his heels, waiting for Lance by the curb.

Thankfully, blessedly, the woman seemed to understand, nodding her head slowly and emphatically.

To say Lance was startled by her suddenly screaming in his ear, was a bit of an understatement.

_Voleur! Voleur!_

Lance looked around wildly, his eyes landing on the back of his would-be suitor’s head as he darted into the crowd and away from him. It was only, sheer, dumb luck, in Lance’s professional opinion as someone who has personally benefited from dumb luck on numerous occasions, that the _voleur_ ran straight into the arms of the police offer still standing in the middle of the road.

Lance was pretty sure he was going to have to pick his jaw up off the ground as the police officer actually handcuffed him right in front of his eyes. The cute little tuft of hair that matched Shiro’s had fallen into his face, but Lance could have sworn the guy actually winked at him as the police officer hauled him away.

“I can’t believe that fucking worked.”

“ _Pardon?”_

The woman was still looking at him, anxiously wringing her hands. Lance gave her a reassuring smile and ended up buying several pastries and two cups of coffee to bring back to Shiro. Something was better than nothing, he figured.

 

When he finally made it back to their room, Shiro was, shamefully, fully dressed, and talking on the phone again.

“ _Yes,_ Keith. I said I was sorry for hanging up on you. _No,_ my tour guide isn’t a scam artist.”

“I’m offended by that!”

Shiro smiled at him, finally noticed Lance putting their things down on the little hotel table as the door clicked closed behind him.

“…yes, that was him. No, you can’t _speak with him_.”

Lance bit his lip, trying to stifle a laugh as he handed Shiro one of the pastries and set the coffee near his elbow.

“I’m hanging up now!”

Groaning, Shiro finally dropped his phone to the table, shooting Lance a smile as he did.

“What happened to sandwiches?”

“Ah…about that…”

Recounting the series of events that had taken place over the past 30 minutes actually had the interesting effect of making them seem _less_ real, not more. To Shiro’s credit, his eyes only got so large before he just started nodding and agreeing with everything Lance was saying.

“So…you’re saying Kuro—”

“Who?”

Shiro paused and reached out for the paper from earlier. It was still open to the front page, as if Shiro had only struggled through that one article.

“It says here, his name is Kuro. No known last name, though.”

Lance studied the passage curiously, but from what he could tell, Shiro was right.

“You had Kuro, a notoriously uncatchable art thief, arrested under false charges of theft from a bakery after you promised to have sex with him?”

Yup, it definitely sounded less real when put like that.

“To be fair, I never promised that. But, yeah, that about sums it up.”

When Shiro put his head down on the table and just started howling with laughter, Lance thought maybe he should be a little concerned about Shiro’s lack of sleep, or his eating habits. Except, then he was looking up and smiling at Lance, his cheek mashed into the back of his hand and looking every inch too adorable for words.

Lance couldn’t figure out how he had, even for a second, thought Kuro was Shiro.

“This is officially the weirdest trip I have ever been on.”

Lance leaned forward, pressing a delicate kiss to the corner of Shiro’s mouth in return.

“I can honestly say, same.”

 

The next day, Lance opened the door the moment the hotel knocked to let them know their paper had been delivered.

Kuro was on the front page again, definitely winking in his mug shot, printed under the headline proclaiming his capture.

When Lance crawled back into bed and showed Shiro, all he could do was laugh and kiss the back of Lance’s unoccupied hand and called him his _knight in shining armor._  


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I've been fighting a virus this week and just wasn't feeling up to it yesterday. You may also notice that there is a final chapter count! I'm thinking about rounding this out at 10 chapters so we are approaching the end!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me during this and who continues to stick with me over the next two weeks as this story comes to a close! I've really enjoyed writing this and all of your comments have meant so much to me and kept me going!

On their last day in Paris, Lance woke up to an empty bed. He frowned, already used to being pressed up against Shiro’s furnace for a body over the past couple nights. It felt weird now to reach out and feel empty sheets. He sat up, scanning the room, ducking his head a little to see if the bathroom door was shut, but it was wide open and the lights were off.

Shiro’s suitcase was still on the little stand where it had found a home a few nights ago, his clothing visible and neatly folded with the lid propped up against the wall. The only thing missing were Shiro’s sneakers, the space by the door where he had kicked them off last night conspicuously empty.

Lance blushed a little, remembering how easily Shiro had picked him up last night. How they had stumbled into the room, Lance clinging to Shiro’s back like a gibbon, all long monkey limbs wrapped around Shiro’s chest and waist.

_“I can’t believe you made me carry you from the restaurant.”_

_Lance hummed, nuzzling closer into Shiro’s neck and making him stumble a bit as he kissed his ear._

_“Sorry, can’t hear you over how full I am.”_

_“Yeah, I bet.”_

_Lance had successfully demolished a pizza meant for 10 entirely on his own, making Shiro’s own family sized bowl of pasta look like an appetizer in comparison._

_As if sensing his thoughts, Lance bit lightly at the shell of Shiro’s ear, earning a startled gasp. In retaliation, Shiro carried him to the bed, flopping back onto the mattress and crushing the air from his lungs with his entire body weight._

_“mmrhmmph…”_

_Shiro sat up, looking over his shoulder at a rumbled looking Lance, cheeks sunburned a little from roaming the city._

_“What was that?”_

_“I said, you’re crushing me to death you nerd.”_

_Shiro nodded solely before flopping forward, their chests pressed together as Lance let out a dramatic oof as the wind knocked out of him again._

_“Try again?”_

_Lance licked his lips, trying to catch his breath but finding it a little difficult for more reasons than the weight of Shiro on his chest._

_“I said, kiss me.”_

_“That’s what I thought you said.”_

They had ended up kissing the rest of the night, slow lazy breaths shared in the space between them as their mouths came together unthinkingly. Shiro’s hands had shifted, unable to keep still, running through Lance’s hair, feeling the curve of hips and small of back.

Lance had been hard, but in that lazy way that was easy to ignore. He just wanted to feel Shiro against him, slowly rutting together but with no real intent beyond being close and kissing, so much kissing Lance could drown in it.

But, now he was alone, and Shiro was still nowhere to be found and Lance was starting to think he would actually have to get up and go find him. It was a chore, pushing the covers away, actually _standing up_ and finding clothes that weren’t too wrinkled.

Lance briefly wondered if he should clean up his stuff, they were leaving today, but they had _hours_ and there was a missing Shiro to find.

It was a relief to see the receptionist already at the desk, his smile carefully held in place as Lance struggled through asking the question in French before giving up and moving to English.

“I’m looking for the guy I’m here with? Tall? Muscular? Hot as the sun?”

Lance gestured a little bit over his head, as if that would help convey who Shiro was and not just get him any random tall boy in the hotel.

“Your boyfriend is in the hotel gym.”

The eyeroll and disdain were pretty heavily implied as the guy spoke in only faintly accented English and seemed to deeply enjoy Lance’s obvious embarrassment, both at the misunderstanding and at the word _boyfriend_ being thrown around so casually.

“Uh…right. Thanks.”

It wasn’t like the hotel was big, so even though the concierge had oh so conveniently forgotten to give Lance directions, it was pretty easy to find Shiro after that.

The gym itself was tiny, a few cardio machines and a small number of free weights. Shiro looked giant in the room, throwing around weights easily enough to make Lance weak in the knees. This wasn’t the first time Lance had seen Shiro without a shirt, but it was the first time he had seen him like this, all glowy with sweat and looking so intense. No wonder he hadn’t broken a sweat last night even after carrying Lance for several blocks.

“You’ve been holding out on me.”

Shiro tilted his head towards him, a smirk already in place. He must have caught sight of Lance in the mirror because he didn’t seem surprised, his biceps bulging as he continued his workout, seemingly unconcerned with his audience.

“Have you been coming down here every morning?”

“No, I’ve just been getting flabby with all the food we’ve been eating so I thought I would today.”

Shiro laughed, setting the dumbbells back in place as Lance mouthed _flabby_ in disbelief.

“If this is you flabby, I need to see what in shape Shiro looks like, stat. I may actually die.”

As if the blush he received in response wasn’t enough to kill Lance anyway. Lance took a seat on one of the machines, watching as non-creepily as possible as Shiro did pullups and dips and flexed his back, peaking shyly over his shoulder every now and then to see if Lance was still watching.

He absolutely was.

Lance almost yelled encore as Shiro finally got one of the little antiseptic towelettes from the dispenser at the wall and started wiping everything down when he was done.

“You’re gorgeous,” Lance blurted out, unthinkingly.

Shiro stopped, the blush on his cheeks even darker now as Lance slammed his hands over his mouth as if to stop the word vomit from going any further.

“Do you…uh…do you think so?”

The uncertain lilt to Shiro’s voice had Lance dropping his hands right away, mouth running a mile a minute as every thought that had run through his mind in the past 30 minutes spilled forward.

“Absolutely. Your body, is of course, absolutely unreal, but your smile is so cute and honestly I want to kiss your lil dimples, both on your face and on your lower back because I just noticed those and wow. Also, can I saw how cute your little fluff of hair is? I want to run my fingers through it and tug on it a little. And your blush, _right there,_ it’s so—”

“Okay! Okay, I get it!”

Shiro looked like he was in disbelief, his entire chest burned red like he had been left out in the sun too long. He rubbed the back of his neck a little, mouth working like he was trying to form words that just wouldn’t come out.

“What about…my um…arm and scars?”

Nonplussed, Lance waited for him to continue, rapidly realizing that Shiro was waiting for a response and that nothing else was forthcoming.

“What about them?”

If anything, Shiro looked even more uncomfortable, his arms folded self-consciously across his chest as if he was only just realizing he was standing in the middle of the room, shirtless.

“You’re not…grossed out?”

Now Lance was really confused. He very distinctly remembered their first morning together and how he had offered to help Shiro with his arm. Why would he have done that if he had been grossed out?

Shiro must have understood where his thoughts went, because he rolled his eyes a little unfairly and clarified.

“It’s different, offering a stranger then…you know…looking at someone you might be interested in.”

Lance looked at him sharply, trying to fathom out where this was coming from all of a sudden.

“No, it isn’t.”

Shiro opened his mouth to argue, but then seemed to reconsider the merits of getting into a _yes it is/no it isn’t_ argument with Lance.

“It isn’t because you’re the same person no matter what. You’re still the same guy who acts like a total nightmare when he’s hungry, and talks so soft to his best friend, and lets Keith mother him from however many miles away, and shoves hot food in his mouth and nearly chokes. Just like you’re the same guy who piggy back carried me home last night and kissed me behind the dumpster and called me beautiful when he thought I was sleeping.”

That got a look of surprise. So, Shiro really must have thought he was sleeping which made it that much cuter.

“Your arm and your scars are part of you. They were part of you when you were a client and they are part of you now as I’m trying desperately to respect boundaries and not jump your ridiculous body.”

When Shiro cracked a smile, Lance felt like he had won the lotto. He moved from his perch on the machine to stand closer, holding his hands out and smiling when Shiro took one in each of his own.

“I have a feeling this has to do with your Ex and I won’t pry. Just remember, I’m not her.”

Shiro leaned forward, kissing him so tenderly, stealing Lance’s breath away and reversing the tables so easily.

“I know that.”

There would be time for Shiro to explain it all. Time for Shiro to go over his complicated feelings about how he never thought she was a bad person, that he didn’t blame her, not really. She just wasn’t able to deal. And Shiro, he understood that and maybe, one day, he would want Lance to understand that, too.

 

-

The security officer was definitely giving them a _look._ Whether it was because Lance was grotesquely shoving a last-minute croissant into his mouth while they waited in line, or because he was holding an old newspaper with Kuro’s winking smile still emblazoned across the front, Shiro wasn’t sure.

The closer they edged forward in the security line, the more the guard seemed to inspect them, his eyes flickering down to the paper at his table and back to Shiro. His eyes narrowed, taking in the scar across the bridge of his nose and the tuft of white hair, looking back at the photo again.

Shiro wished, desperately, for some kind of explanation for the similarity. Even he couldn’t explain how their scars matched up. It was almost a relief when Lance had told him Kuro still had both his arms. Shiro was pretty sure he would have passed out from shock, otherwise.

They were three people from the front of the line. Lance was swallowing down the last of his Pellegrino, and looking around for a trashcan.

Two people, now. Lance threw the bottle and narrowly made it into the trash bin. The guard shot him a distracted glare, and Lance only smiled before sheepishly turning his attention back to Shiro.

“Are you okay?”

One person. Shiro had his passport and ticket clutched in his hand, the papers warping a little from the sweat of his palm. He could feel Lance’s eyes on him, big and full of concern as the guard called him forward and he stepped away.

Shiro handed over the documents and waited, feeling sweat trickle down the back of his neck and dampening the collar of his shirt.

He kept expecting the guard to call foul, to wave the newspaper in his face and signal the guards. For one terror inducing moment, he looked up from Shiro’s passport and stared him right in the eye. Shiro didn’t even blink, holding the other man’s gaze like it was the only thing he had left to do on this earth.

As if finally coming to a decision, the guard suddenly shoved his passport and ticket back into his hand and waved him through, a disgusted sneer filling out the corner of his lips. Shiro felt Lance’s hands on his back then, pushing him out of the way gently so the guard could take his things and check his own passport. Lance was waved on in a matter of seconds, his smile charming the guard a little, who even deigned to smile in return, before glaring once again at Shiro’s retreating back.

Shiro needed to learn that trick, or at the very least, to become less conspicuous. He had a suspicion it was a distinctly Lance trait that was non-transferable.

The rest of security was as trying as it always was for Shiro. Lance helped him to remove the straps of his prosthetic when the furious looking security personnel demanded it go through the x-ray machine. Lance had looked ready to spit fire, but Shiro was used to it, just glad for the help to speed up the process.

It felt good to have Lance there, glaring ferociously like a lioness as he helped Shiro gather his things and reattach his prosthetic in the offset waiting area after the security checkpoint.

“I can’t believe they made you do that. It’s ridiculous! We should report them, or _something._ I can’t just, _they_ can’t just—”

“Lance.”

Shiro gently took Lance’s chin in hand, his newly reattached prosthetic holding his face still as Shiro’s thumb smoothed out the little wrinkles between Lance’s eyes and along his forehead.

“Thank you.”

He kissed him, there in the airport, under the likely exasperated scrutiny of the Charles de Gaulle security guards. It was a chaste kiss, one filled with gratitude and the immeasurable fondness that had lodged itself in Shiro’s heart the past few days and was starting to feel unnervingly permanent.

The wrinkles returned when Shiro pulled back, little premature laugh lines that only showed when Lance smiled with his whole face, eyes twinkling and teeth showing like bunny teeth. Eventually, they were forced to move, the intensity of the glares of security growing until they itched under Shiro’s skin and even Lance couldn’t ignore them anymore.

They still had a few hours until their flight, most of them spent holding hands in the airport lobby outside their gate, Lance using his free hand to show Shiro cat videos on his phone while they laughed too loudly and earned even more disdain filled looks from their fellow passengers.

Shiro spared a thought, as they waited in line once again, this time to board the plane, about what this moment was supposed to have been. It was harder to picture the trip without Lance now, without the feel of his hand in his and his ugly but actually too cute snort of laughter as he watched vine compilation videos in line. Even though Shiro worried, worried that at the end of next week, when they both flew back to New York, that it would all fall apart, he was starting to wonder if things were starting to fall in place like they were meant to be.

It wasn’t love, it was impossible after such a short amount of time. But, it was maybe a little bit of something at first sight. Something unnameable, undefinable, but there in the back of his mind as Lance immediately pushed up the seat dividers between their chairs and rested his head on Shiro’s shoulder. It stayed there, stewing in his thoughts even as Lance drooled on his shirt and mumbled about giant cat robots and Shiro pushed Lance’s hair behind his ear before falling asleep against the airplane window.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaah, the closer we get to the end of this the more nostalgic I feel! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Lance looked ethereal, stepping out of the ocean and running up the beach towards him. His hair was slicked back, the ends curling up around his ears as he laughed. He kicked up sand as he moved, sending it spraying up to coat his legs and to splatter across Shiro’s feet as he skidded to a halt next to him.

Shielding his eyes, Shiro peered up at Lance, backlit by the Crete sun.

“You’re dripping on me.”

Lance grinned, shaking his body like a dog, spraying Shiro with water and laughing as he did. He had closed his eyes and Shiro couldn’t resist teasing him a bit as he reached for him. Lance squealed when Shiro suddenly grabbed him around the waist and pulled him down, rolling in the sand and trapping him beneath him.

The ground felt gritty and wet under Shiro’s palms as he pinned Lance down. They had rolled out from under the umbrella that Shiro had been taking shelter under. The sun beat down on the back of his neck, the beginning of a sunburn already starting to set in, but it was worth it as Lance was forced to squint up at _him_ now.

“You brute!” He sounded like a scandalized Victorian maiden, a fake British accent peaking its way through as Lance struggled not to laugh.

He flailed around, pretending to try to break free but mostly just splashing sand over his hands so it stuck on his skin where he was still wet and where Shiro’s arms were sweaty. Shiro growled, leaning down to bite playfully at Lance’s neck as he did, playing up the caveman routine even as he felt sand get in between his teeth.

“ _Ah!”_

Pulling back, Shiro surveyed his work. He had bit a little harder than intended, worrying Lance’s smooth skin into a faint purplish bruise that would darken over the day. Lance looked…debauched was the only word. His skin was rosy, whether from the sun, the heat, or the press of his cock through the damp swim shorts against Shiro’s hip, he wasn’t sure.

They were both on edge a lot these days, even something as minor as this sending them both spiraling into desire _._

His long eyelashes were damp, clumped together by salt water as they fluttered closed, bearing his throat even more for Shiro. And Shiro, damn him, _wanted._

Shiro wanted to push, to rut together and feel Lance spill in his swim shorts, for the creamy spend to mix with the water now soaking onto Shiro’s own skin. He placed a gentle kiss to the high point of Lance’s cheek instead, tasting the sea salt on his lips before pulling back and releasing Lance from his hold.

Lance blinked a couple times, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Too much?”

His voice sounded husky, and Shiro felt bad when Lance gasped as he accidentally brushed against his cock while trying to climb off of his lap.

“Uh…yeah. Sorry.”

Shiro felt embarrassed. He wanted Lance, of course he did. But, it still felt important not to rush this, to take it slow, both for his sake and for Lance’s. The last thing Shiro wanted was for Lance to be a rebound.

So even though it took what felt like a herculean effort, Shiro forced himself to put a little distance between them, moving back into the shade of the umbrella. Despite that, his eyes never left Lance, still sprawled out in the sun, his dark skin turned even richer by the light and nearly blinding Shiro with the need to crawl back and touch.

“You know, it would be a lot easier if you weren’t looking at me like that,” Lance murmured, eyes tracking Shiro from a couple feet away.

“Like what?”

“Like you want to eat me whole.”

Shiro couldn’t even begin to deny it. It was exactly what he had been thinking, been wanting, from the moment Lance stepped out of the bathroom in his tiny bathing shorts. He closed his eyes instead and smiled when he felt the air stir next to him as Lance made himself comfortable on the other side of the towel next to him.

The heat and low-level arousal made Shiro drowsy though, the sounds of families a ways down the beach coming in and out of focus like static from a radio. He wasn’t sure when he had dropped off, but the sun was significantly lower in the sky when he felt Lance’s hand on his cheek, bringing him back to the awareness.

“Hey there, sleeping beauty.”

Somehow, Lance still looked radiant, even with the obvious sunburn along the apples of his cheeks and his hair wild now that it was dry and wavy from the ocean water.

“Hey, how long was I out?”

“Couple hours,” Lance shoved at him as he spoke, pushing until Shiro got the hint and lifted his arm so Lance could crawl under and lay his head on Shiro’s chest.

“We should probably get back soon for dinner.”

Lance hummed a little, fingers playing with the sparse hair on Shiro’s chest without making any actual moves to get up.

They ended up ten minutes late to dinner, the maître d’ frowning at the way Lance’s hair dripped into his back collar and the obvious hickey on the underside of Shiro’s jaw. Thankfully, he was either too well-mannered or too well paid to say anything beyond obvious and pointed silence.

He did, however, bring Lance a hand towel before walking back to his post.

“I feel like a teenager and he’s my disappointed dad,” Lance giggled, using the towel to squeeze the ends of his hair and dry his shirt as best as he could.

“At least he didn’t catch us under the bleachers.”

Lance perked up, now roughly running the towel across his head and spraying the tablecloth.

“Oh, is that were Takashi Shirogane went to make out in high school, under the bleachers?” Lance teased him, flicking water across the table so it landed on Shiro’s cheek and made him laugh.

“Oh yeah, under the bleachers, abandoned classrooms, in the football locker room.”

That got a reaction. Lance leaned eagerly across the table, eyes wide as the moon in the dim lighting.

“So, Mr. Quarterback, who were you fooling around with in the locker room? Head cheerleader? A mathlete? Maybe your _tight end?_ ” Lance waggled his eyebrows suggestively as Shiro groaned loud enough to earn a glare from the table only a couple feet away.

“I am _not_ answering that.”

Lance crowed, clearly sensing a weakness he was ready to exploit. Teasing Shiro was quickly becoming one of his greatest joys in life.

“Head cheerleader it was then. Was she blonde, blue-eyed, all-American? Sultry and brunette?”

Shiro smirked, already aware of the reaction he was about to get, and ready to bask.

“ _He_ was a red head, and very bendy, thank you very much.”

“Holy shit,” Lance wheezed, sitting back in his chair with a dramatic thump and nearly slumping down onto the floor.

“You are a nuisance, Takashi.”

The sound of his first name falling so casually from Lance’s lips sent a wildfire of heat straight through him, his hands suddenly itching to reach out and touch. As if only just realizing his mistake, Lance sat up ramrod straight, eyes flickering across Shiro’s face as if to see how badly he had just screwed up. Shiro was irresistibly reminded of their first day together, and the way Lance had slammed his hands across his mouth to stop his own flirting.

“I like when you call me Takashi,” Shiro confided, reaching across to take Lance’s hand in his and bring it to his lips.

“You do?”

Shiro nodded, still holding Lance’s hand, forcing him to stretch a little across the table. He wondered how easily Lance would come if he pulled until his chair slid around the little two-person table until it was nestled right up next to his.

The waiter arrived right as Shiro was about to try it, pointedly coughing to get their attention before passing their menus to them. The restaurant itself was dark, forcing both Shiro and Lance to squint a little at the tiny Greek words, and the even tinier English beneath. It was great for candle light and holding hands and exchanging looks maybe a little too charged in public. But, it was not great for reading or ordering, or making sure your food actually made it onto your fork from the plate.

They ended up giggling into their food for most of the evening, blindly stabbing at their plates and making way too much noise for somewhere so classy and expensive.

“How’s the excavation coming, Takashi?”

Shiro very seriously contemplated what he assumed was a pile of vegetables on his plate.

“A little iffy, if I’m honest. I can’t tell if this is broccoli or lettuce.”

Lance’s fork flashed in the candlelight as it darted across the table and unerringly speared the offending food item. He chewed for several long minutes, little hiccupping giggles keeping him from saying anything concrete.

“Takashi…I don’t know how to tell you this but…that’s a potato.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Shiro speared another one of the things he was now sure was broccoli, only to find the taste and texture of a potato in his mouth. Lance was nearly in hysterics by the time Shiro finished chewing, his mouth wide open but unable to say anything from shock.

By the time their meal was over, they were both sure the entire hotel restaurant, staff and customers alike, were glad to see them go. Shiro felt light as he Lance swung their linked hands together as they walked across the lobby and down the hall to their room.

Their original reservation had been for a single suit, the one they were in now, and a single room that would have been Lance’s. Shiro still wasn’t sure how Lance had convinced them to refund the money on a nonrefundable reservation, but Shiro’s pocketbook thanked him.

Lance had wandered immediately into the bathroom, arranging his things on the counter for his nightly routine. Lance’s clothes may be strewn all over the floor, but this was something he did with precision and care and it made something warm settle in the hollow of Shiro’s chest as he watched from the doorway.

Careful not to jostle him, Shiro moved closer, wrapping his arms around Lance’s waist to watch him place the final product in line, the point of his chin likely digging into the meat of Lance’s shoulder.

“You really have it together, don’t you?”

Shiro kissed the exposed sliver of neck where Lance’s collar had slipped, missing the look of surprise on Lance’s face reflected in the mirror.

“What do you mean?”

The tone of Lance’s voice was off, the first sign to Shiro that he may have just stepped into something unintentionally.

“I just mean that this whole trip you’ve seemed so calm and you’ve charmed everyone you’ve met, especially me. I just envy your confidence.”

Lance turned within the circle of Shiro’s arms, careful not to break his hold. The expression on his face was unreadable as he stared at him, their noses bumping lightly with each breath.

“Shiro, I’m none of those things.”

Furrowing his brow, Shiro waited for Lance to continue, the lines between his forehead deepening as he struggled for words.

“I’m definitely not calm or confident, and I have no idea how I charmed you at all,” he laughed a little, a self-deprecating smile starting to curl the edges of his lips.

“I’m so far the opposite of calm. I keep thinking this is going too fast and at the end of this week we’ll go our separate ways or that you’ll look at me and realize you were just lonely, and I know that’s terrible and I don’t think you would do it on purpose but…I worry...”

It was hard for Shiro, to hear that he had been ignoring Lance like that, to hear his own worries spoken back to him, that they had left this unsaid. He kissed Lance, tasting salt were a couple stray tears had spilled down his cheeks.

“I can’t promise you that everything will work out. But…”

Shiro paused, kissing Lance again when he started to pull away, anchoring him to him and using his strength to keep him still.

“I can’t promise you that. But I can promise you to try. I like you, Lance. I like you a lot. I want this to work out, as weird and unexpected as this has been—”

Lance kissed him this time, hard enough to bruise as he surged forward, nearly knocking them backwards. Shiro’s hands slipped down, feeling the swell of Lance’s thighs as he hoisted him up onto the counter.

“I promise to take you on dates when this is over, and to date you like normal and kiss you at the door and agonize over a text back.”

Speaking in between kisses, Shiro wasn’t even sure what he was saying. He could have been promising Lance the moon for all he knew, but at the very least, he knew he meant it. He felt something for Lance, and he wasn’t willing to let him walk out of his life once the trip was over.

They spent ages, kissing with Lance’s ankles locked around Shiro’s waist until eventually Lance pulled away, embarrassed.

“We uh…we should stop or I’m going to uh…” he flushed, glancing down between them at the obvious bulge in his slacks.

Something about the conversation had shifted things in Shiro’s mind. Now that he knew he wasn’t the only one worried, that Lance shared his feelings and concerns, he didn’t feel hesitant anymore. If anything, he wanted to be closer to him now more than ever.

Shiro grabbed Lance again, hoisting him up into his arms and carrying him to the bed. He sat on the edge, Lance’s legs still locked around him as he balanced on Shiro’s knees.

“Is this okay?” Shiro asked, kissing the underside of Lance’s jaw, feeling the flutter of his pulse against his lips.

“Yes, if you’re sure.”

Lance tilted his head to the side, exposing his throat, calling back that feeling of primal _want_ that had startled Shiro back in Spain.

He had never been more sure of anything.

-

Lance was a dream, perfectly made for Shiro, and Shiro for him.

The first part was easy, hours spent kissing and rocking together had already left them both well acquainted with where to bite, to lick, to suck. It didn’t stop Shiro from fumbling the lube, from blushing when he asked Lance if he liked to bottom, from blushing even more when Lance rolled his eyes and just kissed him in response as he guided his fingers down down _down_.

They were awkward and too needy and definitely too desperate. Lance shouldn’t have told Shiro he was ready when he knew he wasn’t, and paid when the stretch burned a little too much and Shiro’s eyes grew wide in apology.

Lance came way too quickly and cried hot wet tears as he encouraged Shiro to keep going, even as spikes of overstimulation shot down his spine and blackness edged around his vision.

Shiro pulled out, unthinkingly spilling across Lance’s stomach and chest before apologizing, realizing he hadn’t asked, then growing embarrassed when Lance covered his face and mumbled how much he liked it.

It definitely would not go down as the smoothest of first time. But, when they were finally clean, and Lance had helped him take of his prosthetic and massaged his arm before passing out across Shiro’s chest, he couldn’t help but feel it was maybe the perfect first time for them.

-

Lance absolutely did not want to go back home. He kept shooting Shiro pouting looks, his bottom lip stuck way out as he waited at the airport terminal for his ticket to be called. Shiro was already in line, waiting to load up for First-Class.

For the first time in their entire trip, Lance had not been able to work his charm. The airline had flat out refused to exchange his Economy ticket for Shiro’s Ex’s First-Class ticket, no matter how many times he batted his eyelashes and flashed his most flirtatious smile.

Shiro sent him apologetic looks, even as he covered his mouth to hide a smirk before very unconvincingly trying to turn it into blowing kisses.

Lance shot him the finger and stood up to go badger the airline counter again.

“I just don’t understand why you can’t exchange it. The seat will be _empty.”_

He jabbed at the ticket emphatically, waving his own around like a fan for emphasis.

“Is that your name?”

Lance groaned, having already heard _this_ particular argument 500 times today.

“ _No.”_

“Then I guess that’s not your seat, is it?”

By the time Lance had stomped off back to his chair, Shiro had already boarded and the announcer was calling for Economy passengers to line up. He was still seething as he marched on board and nearly screamed when he got on the plane and the First-Class curtain flew open and a pair of hands dragged him sideways.

He caught a glimpse of a smiling stewardess waving his direction before the curtain closed again, blocking her from view.

“You didn’t _actually_ think I was going to spend an 11-hour plane ride up here without you, did you?”

Lance gaped as Shiro tugged him along past large cushioned chairs and people sipping champagne. Each seat had so much leg room, Lance could hear his own knees and back sighing in relief even before he sat down.

When they made it to their seats, a stewardess was placing two flutes of champagne at their chairs. Lance prepared for questions, or worse, a scolding, but she only winked and walked away, offering champagne to the remaining passengers in First-Class.

“What did you _do?”_

Lance was in awe as he settled into the chair beside Shiro, wiggling a little as the cushions morphed to his body. The champagne tickled his tongue, pleasant and just the right amount of sweet as he eagerly took several long sips. Shiro kissed his cheek once Lance placed the half-finished glass back on his tray.

“You’re not the only charmer in this relationship.”

For the first time in the entire trip, Lance really started to wonder if he was maybe a bit in over his head.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, the final chapter! Sorry for the delay, work was kicking my butt and I just couldn't get it out on time. Also, tbh, I was really emotional about writing this and ending this fic that I found myself resisting writing this chapter. I've just had so much fun writing this and reading your comments and I can't express to you all how much your comments have meant to me. 
> 
> Thank you everyone who has stuck with me through this, and for anyone who has liked, commented, or subscribed to this self indulgent work.

It was about 5 hours into their 11 hours flight when Lance had an idea. Shiro was watching something on the complimentary in-flight wifi (first-class, _honestly_ ) but he had one ear bud out and kept turning to smile at Lance every time he shifted or hummed or pointed something interesting out on the screen.

“Shiro…what are your precise thoughts on joining a club?”

Lance widened his eyes a little, aiming for innocent, but probably missing by a mile.

“A club?”

Lance wanted to scream, Shiro was honestly so _cute,_ how could he…

“You’re smirking.”

The smirk, originally just a barely there curl of Shiro’s lips, widened into something full blown, twinkling eyes included.

“You’ve _already joined_ ,” Lance accused, poking Shiro in the chest hard enough to make him wince even as he laughed.

“Yeah, in high school my family took me and Keith to Florida and we uh…maybe snuck away and…Isn’t it bad to talk about your Ex? Shouldn’t I stop?” Shiro looked worriedly at Lance, searching his gaze for hints of a sudden jealous rage.

“No! I want all the sordid details! Did you fuck him? Did _he fuck you?_ Was it cramped? I bet it was cramped, I feel like even a teen you would be a giant human—” Lance stopped, startled by the way Shiro had suddenly stood up and started trying to cross in front of him and pull Lance alongside him.

“Shiro?”

“Come on,” Shiro kept tugging, pulling Lance out of his seat and down the aisle to the unoccupied first-class bathroom.

“Oh my gosh.”

The bathroom was definitely cramped, the bulk of Shiro’s body crowding him up against the little door, Shiro’s hands braced under his thighs, hiking up to wrap his legs around Shiro’s hips. It was fast and messy, Lance’s pants worked down just enough to expose himself, Shiro’s pants dropped to his ankles and making his movements clumsy as he couldn’t spread his feet far enough apart to brace himself.

“One day we’ll have non-clumsy sex,” Lance gasped into Shiro’s mouth, whimpering when Shiro’s thumb smeared across the crown of his dick.

“Is this considered sex?” Shiro laughed, rolling his fingers in such a way that Lance felt his soul actually depart from his body as pleasure sparked across his skin.

Any response Lance would have made was lost as Shiro lunged forward again, claiming his mouth as he thrust erratically against him, jerking them off together, messy and perfect until they spilled between them, thoroughly ruining Lance’s sweater.

“I really liked that sweater,” Lance pouted down at the growing wet spot across his stomach and chest.

“I really like you,” Shiro kissed him, once, twice, three times against his swollen lower lip.

Lance felt flushed, overheated, and not just from what they had been doing in the stuffy little room.

“I really like you, too.”

Smiling, Shiro pressed him up against the wall, easing his legs down back to the floor with a grunt.

“I’m glad.”

It took them a few minutes to get put back together, Shiro courteously running a paper towel under some water to dab at where Lance’s sweater was dark and damp from both of them.

“I think it’s a lost cause…” Shiro winced, apologetically.

If he was honest, Lance wasn’t actually that upset. He would trade a hundred sweaters to have Takashi Shirogane kiss him like he was now, slow and sweet after giving up on cleaning him off.

Lance pulled the sweater off overhead, revealing a thin undershirt, still miraculously dry. He went to hand it to Shiro so he could wash his hands, but stopped at the suddenly hungry look in his eyes.

“Like something you see?” Lance teased, pressing close again and squishing the ruined shirt between them.

“Always.”

Lance groaned, pulling away with a laugh and rubbing his hands across his face.

“I can’t believe I thought you wouldn’t know what the mile-high club was.”

Crowding Lance up against the counter, Shiro hooked his chin over Lance’s shoulder and watched him turn the facet on to clean up a little more.

“I can’t believe you thought that either,” Shiro laughed, kissing the now exposed skin of Lance’s neck, specifically a dark bruise in the shape of his own mouth from the night before.

“What happened to my innocent man who gave me a flower?” Lance faux mourned, kicking out in surprise when Shiro reach up under his tank to tickle along his ribcage.

He squirmed, turning in Shiro’s hold to wipe his damp hands on his shirt in retaliation. Shiro’s eyes gleamed, already tucking in for another kiss when the fasten seatbelt sign pinged overhead and a very embarrassed sounding flight attendant called out to ask if they were okay?

Shiro looked about ready to die, even if he had been the one to pull Lance into the bathroom 20 minutes ago. It seemed his innocent man wasn’t exactly that far from the surface after all.

“Yes, thank you! We’ll be right out.”

Shiro whimpered, the tips of his ears practically on fire as Lance just kissed his cheek and boldly unlocked the door.

“Come on, baby. Other people need to pee.”

“Oh my gosh.”

-

Lance was feeling pretty good by the time their plane started its descent. He still felt loose limbed and content from their foray into the bathroom, and Shiro’s flesh hand was a constant warm pressure high up on his thigh. Shiro squeezed his hand rhythmically around the muscle to catch Lance’s attention, or just to feel him shift beneath his touch.  

It was almost bizarre, how hard it was to keep his hands to himself. Shiro hadn’t felt like this since he was a teenager, just starting to realize how nice other people’s bodies were, how good it felt to touch and be touched in return.

Just as quickly, he felt panic start to form, cold and hard in his stomach. He didn’t want to let Lance leave, to walk out of the airport and go to his own home and be away from Shiro for the first time in almost a month.

“Would you…would you want to come home with me?”

Shiro was squeezing his thigh even harder, pressing finger print bruises in through Lance’s jeans and making his breath hitch with _want._

“ _Please.”_

An edge of panic was in Lance’s own voice, his hand reaching down to rest on Shiro’s own, his eyes were a little wide and desperate when he finally got Shiro to make eye contact. Shiro was so relieved, to know he wasn’t the only one feeling like this, a little codependent after spending so much time living out of each other’s pockets.

He knew, logically, that Lance would have to leave. At some point, Lance would have to go back to his own apartment and go back to his normal teaching job that he did during the year. But, Lance was still on vacation, and Shiro still had a week left before Allura would expect him back. And maybe, if Shiro was very lucky, or at least very convincing, he could keep Lance locked to his side just a little longer.

-

Shiro was glad when Lance automatically grabbed his prosthetic as they were exiting the plane, leaving their other hands free to carry their bags out to baggage claim. It was just a reminder how comfortable Lance was with him, sending a flock birds fluttering through his stomach and warming him.

They ended up standing there at the little suitcase carousel, Lance swinging their hands lightly between them as Shiro bit his lip to keep from smiling too much. He couldn’t remember being this happy.

“Shiro?”

Confused, Shiro moved sluggishly to turn around, in search of whoever had called his name. Lance’s hand was still holding tight to his, turning with him to keep the point of contact.

Keith and Hunk were standing behind them, Keith’s eyes wide as he looked between Shiro, Lance, and the way their fingers were intertwined between them.

“Hunk?”

Lance’s mouth was wide open, jerking forward instinctively and dragging Shiro a few steps forward along with him towards Hunk.

“Lance? Man, what the hell?” Hunk laughed, his own gaze flickering uncertainly to Keith and back to Lance and Shiro.

“Who is this? Do you two _know each other?”_ Keith accused, turning to stare menacingly at his boyfriend, who only smiled pleasantly at him, years of practice rendering Keith’s glare mostly ineffective.

“Lance was my roommate in college but I didn’t, man, it’s been so long!”

Hunk stepped closer to Lance, their hug awkward only because Lance and Shiro had still refused to let go of each other, their arms spanning the space between them.

“Yeah, how are you? I’ve missed—”

A pointed cough from behind them derailed Lance, all eyes moving back to Keith, whose eyebrows had climbed way up into this hairline and looked about ready to blow a gasket.

“Someone better start talking and they better hand me a coffee while they’re at it.”

Hunk, apparently used to such threats, only grinned a little at Lance and Shiro before moving back to Keith’s side. He slung an arm around Keith’s shoulders and placed a mollifying kiss to his forehead.

“Yes, baby.”

-

To Lance’s relief, Keith looked a lot less menacing in the ambiance of a Starbucks across the street from the airport, a café mocha piled high with whipped cream clutched in his hands. It was also surprisingly easy to unweave the not so complicated lines of their relationships with a warm drink in his hands and Shiro’s hand back on his thigh.

“So, you really didn’t know Lance still lived in the city, or did these tours?” Keith looked at Hunk curiously, no accusation left in his tone.

Hunk nodded, still smiling at Lance and Shiro as if a pleasant surprise he had never considered had been presented to him Christmas morning.

“I really didn’t know.”

Keith still looked skeptical, his eyes narrowed at the casual way Lance swung his arm around Shiro’s shoulder. But, Hunk was a really good judge of character and if said Lance was a good guy…

“This just seems really sudden…is all…” Keith muttered, hating to be the wet blanket but not about to let Shiro walk into some kind of scam that could hurt him all over again.

“It does,” Lance agreed easily, leaning forward now to look Keith right in the eye.

“It _is_ really sudden. And I’m really glad that Shiro has someone who sees that and hates me a little because of it.”

Spluttering, Keith tried to say he didn’t _hate_ Lance, he didn’t even _know_ Lance, but Shiro was howling with laughter, leaning on the table with tears in his eyes and grinning back at Lance like he hung the moon. And damn him, Lance was looking right back with that same soppy, besotted look Keith had seen on his own face in pictures of him and Hunk.

“ _Fine._ You have my blessing!”

Keith threw both hands up in the air as if to wash his hands of them both, even though they all knew that would never happen.

“Thank you oh mullet headed one!” Lance intoned seriously, bowing before Keith with exaggerated solemnity over the sticky café table.

“ _What_ did you call me?”

“And that’s our cue! We’re going back to my place, uh…see you guys in a week?” Shiro offered a little sheepishly, already picking his bags up from the floor and waving at Hunk.

“A _week?”_

“Let it go, babe.”

Hunk rubbed a soothing hand along the length of Keith’s spine, smiling and waving back as Shiro and Lance darted out the door.

“Let them have their honeymoon phase.”

As the door to the Starbucks swung closed, Shiro and Lance heard a very exasperated Keith yell out, “They _just had_ a honeymoon!”

Biting his lip, Lance stifled his giggles as he let Shiro pull him back across the street to the line of taxis waiting to take them back into the city. They stood in line, trading kisses until they got to the front and Shiro gave the driver his address and Lance felt giddy with happiness and desire and maybe the stirrings of love.

-

Lance shifted nervously, running his hands along his suit, reaching up to brush through his hair.

“ _Don’t you dare,”_ Allura hissed, her perfectly manicured hand wrapped tight around Lance’s wrist, suspending his fingers just a few inches from his face.

“Sorry, sorry!” Lance winced as she let go, feeling the skin throb from her bruising grip.

“I have spent way too long on that bird’s nest to let you mess it up now,” she sniffed primly, straightening her skirt with an imperious look in Lance’s direction.

Ever since Shiro had introduced Lance to his boss, it had been love at first sight. It would not be wrong to say that Lance mildly worshiped the ground Allura walked on. Shiro would have been jealous if Lance hadn’t looked so disgusted when Shiro had jokingly brought up the idea of Lance being attracted to her.

“Allura is a goddess, above mortal men and sexual appetite, obviously, Shiro,” Lance had looked so aghast, as if the very idea that he would sully his adoration of Allura like that was a heinous crime.

Shiro hadn’t worried again. Especially the first time he spotted them standing together, waiting for Shiro to finish up at the office, only to realize they were critiquing the clothing of people passing by on the streets below.

Their friendship was weird, but not anymore then his and Keith’s. Besides, they both knew who they were in love with, whose ring they wore on their fingers.

Lance still smiled at the memory, fidgeting with the hem of his white suit, wondering what Shiro was thinking about now, wondering if Keith was snapping at Shiro as much as Allura was getting onto him.

It felt so long ago, that month they spent together, traveling across Europe, their ‘first honeymoon’, as Lance liked to call it. It didn’t feel like five years had passed, but it also didn’t feel like time had existed before Shiro. In some way, Shiro had always been in his life, Lance was sure of it. They just hadn’t met yet.

And across the hall, Shiro was thinking something similar as Keith fussed with his bow tie and Hunk poured over his speech as officiant.

“I can’t believe it actually took you guys this long,” Keith was muttering, as if he was offended that Shiro and Lance had wasted so much time.

Shiro smiled, waiting patiently as Keith tugged a little at the tie, straightening out Shiro’s lapels, getting distracted by his own ring and flashbacks to his and Hunk’s wedding 6 months ago. It was indescribable, the feelings Shiro had for Keith, the happiness he felt when he saw him with Hunk. Shiro pulled him close, surprising Keith a little. He hugged Keith tight to his chest, hoping that all of the love and gratitude he felt would convey through touch alone.

Two hands reached up, clutching at the back of Shiro’s suit as they embraced and he knew Keith understood. When they pulled apart, Hunk had looked up from his work and was smiling softly at them. Keith looked a little misty eyed as he moved away and flopped into Hunk’s lap with and irritated huff.

Hunk gently tilted Keith’s head back, a finger beneath his chin to bring him close for a kiss. Shiro couldn’t wait, to see Lance, to kiss him, to marry him and hold him like that for the rest of their lives.

An hour later, they entered the church together, walking in from opposite sides of the hall. They walked down the aisle, fingers brushing and tangling together as their friends and family watched from the pews. Lance’s mama was already bawling in the front row and Shiro couldn’t help but smile.

Hunk looked at them each before he started speaking, but if Shiro was honest, he barely heard a word. He was too focused on the way Lance was chewing up his lip, tears pricking his eyes as they still held hands, stretched across the dais. And when they leaned together and kissed for the first time as a married couple, Shiro remembered their first kiss in Barcelona, up against the dirty rock wall, next to the dumpster.

He hadn’t thought anything could ever be that perfect again, but Lance was always full of surprises.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a quick little epilogue to this as a birthday gift for Skylocked.tumblr.com
> 
> I wasn't sure if I should upload this as a chapter or a separate story, but I decided to go with this!

Lance kicked his feet against the bed, wiggling as quietly and as unobtrusively as possible. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence that he was awake before Shiro. In fact, it was a blue moon kind of thing.

That was a fun little surprise for Shiro when he found out that the hour Lance woke up while they were in Europe had been in direct proportion to how much money he was making. Back at home, with only afternoon classes to teach? Lance was awake at eleven, if they were lucky.

But this morning, this morning Lance _knew_ something. He knew something that was exciting and romantic and perfect and made sleeping almost impossible sleep even at five in the morning.

“Stop. Moving,” Shiro growled, shrugging his shoulder to hike the blanket higher up around his chin.

His back was to Lance, but Lance could easily picture the grumpy frown on his lips.

“Shiro, I was thinking—”

“Well, stop.”

Lance snorted, reaching out to trail his fingers along the curve of Shiro’s back through the comforter. Even through the thick fabric, the bulge of Shiro’s muscles were easy to discern.

“Ah, my sweet handsome husband, who I love—”

Groaning, Shiro flopped onto his back just so he could reach around and push Lance away, his hand in his face. All it really did was start Lance laughing, giggling as he trapped Shiro’s hand in between his so it crossed across his chest uncomfortably.

“You aren’t going to stop, are you?” Shiro sighed, finally blinking his eyes open to look at Lance in the dim morning sun.

In response, Lance just leaned forward and kissed him, morning breath and all. Grumpy, first thing in the morning Shiro was a treat he so rarely experienced.

“Nope,” Lance popped the P sound right against Shiro’s ear, grinning when he laughed and pushed him away again.

Shiro fully turned onto his side to look at Lance. He carded his fingers through Lance’s curly bed head, so easy for him even so early in the morning.

“What were you thinking, baby?”

“I was thinking, I wish we had some photos of us.”

Shiro frowned, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

“In case you missed it, we have an entire wall of framed photos from our wedding?”

Smirking, Lance shifted even closer. The blanket had shifted, exposing Shiro’s bare chest for Lance to press against.

“Oh, snarky Shiro is out to play,” Lance teased, running his hand along the side of Shiro’s freshly shaved undercut.

It was one of Lance’s favorite things, to watch Shiro carefully shave his head in the mirror, to feel the soft peach fuzz against his skin for days after while it was still short and new.

“No, what I mean is, I wish we had photos from our honeymoon,” Lance explained, even as Shiro just continued to blink.

“Lance, we have a full—"

“ _No,_ our _other_ honeymoon,” Lance tweaked Shiro’s ear, tugging on the delicate shell.

Shiro, for his part, was squinting at him, suddenly suspicious.

“You’ve been snooping,” Shiro accused.

Lance gasped, jerking back in feigned shock and surprise.

“ _Me? Snoop?_ I just…I can’t…how do you… _me?_ How do I know that…maybe _you’ve_ been snooping!” Lance sputtered, trying to roll away from Shiro in mock offense.

He squeaked as Shiro reached around and jerked him back to press against his chest.

“What did you find, huh?”

Shiro was fully awake now, rolling Lance onto his back to loom over him threateningly, as if Shiro could ever be anything but gentle with him.

“Tell the truth,” Shiro whispered, pressing his lips to Lance’s forehead, imploring and impossible to ignore.

“I _maybe_ saw the brochure in the mail. And I _maybe_ saw that you had left your email open and were making some reservations for this summer and they were _maybe_ for Barcelona and France and Greece… _maybe,”_

Shiro nodded seriously, “Oh, just maybe, huh? That’s very specific for a _maybe._ ”

Lance only hummed, tilting his head up for a kiss that Shiro happily obliged. He couldn’t be too mad, really. It wasn’t like either of them had ever been any good at keeping secrets from each other in the first place.

-

Their bathroom looked like a minor natural disaster had blown through, leaving Lance and all of their toiletries, scattered around the tiny room. Shiro propped his shoulder up against the door jam, watching fondly as Lance sorted everything into piles.

“What are you up to?” Shiro asked, smiling when Lance only waved him away.

“Figuring out what we need.”

Lance always got like this when they traveled, intricately planning everything they could possibly need for every eventuality.

“What happened to my lost little guide in Barcelona?” Shiro frequently sighed, just to hear Lance squawk, _I wasn’t lost!_

Shiro was almost positive Lance got like this over the years just to prove him wrong. He left him though, knowing full well Lance wasn’t going to pay him any attention for a while now. Their suitcases were open on the bed, waiting for Shiro to fold their clothes and pack them away for their flight in the morning.

-

Lance was still asleep when Shiro padded into the kitchen for his first cup of coffee. It was still dark outside and Shiro couldn’t fathom turning on an overhead light. Instead, he worked by the light of the streetlamps outside and the dim light of the stove.

It was instinct really, to fill the coffee pot and pour the water and pull down two mugs while he waited. Lance always took a splash of coconut milk in his and a little sugar, so Shiro poured both into the bottom of one of the mugs.

The smell of coffee was filling the room, likely working its magic to lure Lance out of their bed. When the pot beeped, Shiro poured his own black coffee into a mug and turned to rest his hip against the counter.

It was a different room, a different apartment, a different time, but Shiro remembered it anyway.

The tickets were sitting on the table, just like before. Except now they were waiting for him or Lance to snatch them up on the way out the door. The car he had hired would be here in just a few hours to pick them up and take them to the airport. They would probably kiss and laugh and annoy their driver the whole way there, like they normally did.  

This wasn’t the first time they had traveled together since the first time they had met, not even close. But this would be the first time they were going back. Shiro was excited to see the grumpy old man again, to drink coffee in the garden and to kiss Lance in all the places he should have all those years ago.

Abruptly, the overhead light in the kitchen flipped on and Shiro winced as his eyes adjusted. He put his own cup down to pick up Lance’s and hand it to him instead.  

“Why are you standing in the dark?” Lance laughed, taking the offered cup of coffee with a hum of thanks.

Lance was sloppy from sleep, his eyes bleary and hair all over the place. He would probably need glasses soon, even though he denied it, so he was squinting a little, too. He looked anything but perfect and would probably die rather then let anyone but Shiro see him like this, and Shiro felt every inch of that privilege in his heart.

“I love you,” Shiro confessed, although it wasn’t really a confession at all.

He was helpless with adoration in this moment and every moment with Lance. He had completely transformed Shiro’s life and he loved him more then words could say, but he tried anyway.

“I love you, too,” Lance smiled and kissed his cheek, even if the words had come seemingly out of nowhere.

“Love you even more if you finished packing while I took a shower,” Lance teased, flicking Shiro on the nose and running away before Shiro could retaliate.

He was still laughing and hustling down the hallway when Shiro gave chase.


End file.
